The REFIMEVE+ project aims to deliver an optical frequency reference to around twenty laboratories across mainland France via RENATER’s fiber-optic Internet network. This new technology is now commercially available through the transfer of expertise to three French companies and has already demonstrated unprecedented results: it allows surpassing the capabilities offered by the GPS service by several orders of magnitude. A revolution is underway, with the ultimate goal of paving the way for groundbreaking applications in fields as diverse as metrology, physics, and geodesy!
Atomic clocks are time and frequency measurement standards. They are extremely high-performance instruments, developed in only a few laboratories. At LNE-SYRTE (Paris Observatory – PSL University, CNRS, Sorbonne University), a stabilized laser provides an ultra-stable frequency reference that can be transmitted over long distances via the fiber-optic network. The metrological reference carried by the laser beam can thus be shared with numerous other laboratories across France, and even Europe.
In this episode, we follow the work of Etienne Cantin, research engineer at the Laser Physics Laboratory (CNRS, Sorbonne Paris Nord University), whose mission is to distribute the optical reference signal over the REFIMEVE network.
Let’s now discover the work of Fabrice Wiotte, an electronics engineer at the Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers (CNRS, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord).
