The Pound–Drever–Hall (PDH) technique is a widely used and powerful approach for stabilizing the frequency of light emitted by a laser by means of locking to a stable cavity. The PDH technique has a broad range of applications including interferometric gravitational wave detectors, atomic physics, and time measurement standards, many of which also use related techniques such as frequency modulation spectroscopy. Named after R. V. Pound, Ronald Drever, and John L. Hall, the PDH technique was described in 1983 by Drever, Hall and others working at the University of Glasgow and the U. S. National Bureau of Standards. This optical technique has many similarities to an older frequency-modulation technique developed by Pound for microwave cavities.