Some aspects of simulation and realization of an optical reference cavity

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The interrogation of an ultra-narrow clock transition of a single trapped ion for optical frequency metrology requires a laser stabilized to a couple of Hz per second with a linewidth of the same order of magnitude. Today, lasers in the visible have reached the Hz-range in frequency stability, if locked onto a high-finesse, ultra-stable reference cavity. Vertical mounting of the reference cavity can reduce its sensitivity to vibrations as described in notcutt05. We have designed a comparable vertical cavity with an overall length of 150 mm resulting in a Free Spectral Range of 1GHz. Optimisation of the cavity design has been carried out with a Finite-Elements Method, leading to expected relative length variations below 10⁻¹⁴ under the influence of gravity acceleration (1 g). The variation of different geometric parameters has been studied. The analysis of the different noise sources shows that, for a regime superior to a tenth of a hertz, the fast linewidth of the laser will not be limited by the cavity characteristics.