Brillouin amplification supports $1\times10^{-20}$ accuracy in optical frequency transfer over 1400~km of underground fibre

Abstract: We investigate optical frequency transfer over a 1400~km loop of underground fibre connecting Braunschweig and Strasbourg. Largely autonomous fibre Brillouin amplifiers (FBA) are the only means of intermediate amplification, allowing phase-continuous measurements over periods up to several days. Over a measurement period of about three weeks we find a weighted mean of the transferred frequency's fractional offset of $(1.1\pm0.4)\times10^{-20}$. In the best case we find an instability of $6.9\times10^{-21}$ and a fractional frequency offset of $4.4\times10^{-21}$ at an averaging time of around 30~000~s. These results represent an upper limit for the achievable uncertainty over 1400 km when using a chain of remote Brillouin amplifiers, and allow us to investigate systematic effects at the $10^{-20}$-level.