High-resolution spectroscopy of arbitrary light sources using frequency combs

Abstract: Multiheterodyne techniques using frequency combs -- light sources whose lines are perfectly evenly-spaced -- have revolutionized optical science. By beating an unknown signal with the many lines of a comb, its spectrum is recovered. However, these techniques have been restricted to measuring coherent sources, such as lasers. In this work, we demonstrate a new multiheterodyne technique that allows for nearly any complex broadband spectrum to be retrieved using a comb. Two versions are introduced: a delayed comb technique that uses a tunable delay element, and a dual comb technique that uses a second comb. In each case, the spectrum of the source is recovered by Fourier transforming the correlation between two spectrograms. This approach is statistical in nature and is general to nearly any source (coherent or incoherent), allowing for the entire spectrum to be rapidly measured with high resolution.