Comparison of independent optical frequency measurements using a portable iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG laser

A comparison of two independent absolute optical frequency measurements has been carried out between the National Metrology Institute of Japan/National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (NMIJ/AIST), Tsukuba, Japan and the JILA (formerly the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics), Boulder, CO, using a portable iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG laser. The agreement between the two absolute measurements is better than the measurement uncertainty of 6.7/spl times/10/sup -13/ that can be attributed to the reproducibility limitations of the portable laser. This comparison is used to confirm the measured absolute frequency of an iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG laser at NMIJ/AIST (Y3), which is reported to the Consultative Committee for Length (CCL) for the determination of the absolute frequency value of iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG lasers.