Birefringent atomic vapor laser lock in a hollow cathode lamp

Abstract

We report a robust method of stabilizing a laser to the frequency of an atomic transition using a hollow cathode lamp. In contrast to the standard dichroic atomic vapor laser lock (DAVLL) method, which uses dichroism induced by a longitudinal magnetic field, we employ birefringence induced by a transversal magnetic field. We applied this method to the $(5s^2){}^1{S}_0-(5s5p){}^1{P}_1$ transition (461 nm) of Sr. Although the hollow cathode is made of ferromagnetic material, we successfully applied a magnetic field of sufficient strength to obtain an error signal with a theoretical maximum slope. This method may be applied to other hollow cathode lamps of different atomic species.

References in corpus (1)

• Frequency stabilization of an ultraviolet laser to ions in a discharge

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Analyzing the optical pumping on the $5s4d{}^1{D}_2-5s8p{}^1{P}_1$ transition in a magneto-optical trap of Sr atoms
• Limitation of single-repumping schemes for laser cooling of Sr atoms