A simple, powerful diode laser system for atomic physics

Abstract

External-cavity diode lasers are ubiquitous in atomic physics and a wide variety of other scientific disciplines, due to their excellent affordability, coherence length and versatility. However, for higher power applications, the combination of seed lasers, injection-locking and amplifiers can rapidly become expensive and complex. Here we present a useful, high-power, single-diode laser design with specifications: $>210$mW, $100$ms-linewidth ($427\pm 7$) kHz, $>99\%$ mode purity, $10$GHz mode-hop-free tuning range and $12$nm coarse tuning. Simple methods are outlined to determine the spectral purity and linewidth with minimal additional infrastructure. The laser has sufficient power to collect $10^{10}$ ${}^{87}$Rb atoms in a single-chamber vapour-loaded magneto-optical trap. With appropriate diodes and feedback, the system could be easily adapted to other atomic species and laser formats.

arXiv comment4 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Invited Review: Micro-fabricated components for cold atom sensors
• Single-beam grating-chip 3D and 1D optical lattices
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