Abstract

Higher-order mode locking has been proposed to reduce the thermal noise limit of reference cavities. By locking a laser to the ${\mathrm{HG}}_{02}$ mode of a 10-cm long all ultra-low expansion (ULE) cavity and measuring its performance with the three-cornered-hat method among three independently stabilized lasers, we demonstrate a thermal-noise-limited performance of a fractional frequency instability of $4.9\times {10}^{-16}$. The results match the theoretical models with higher-order optical modes. The achieved laser instability improves the all ULE short cavity results to a new low level.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

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