Design of a Littrow-type diode laser with independent control of cavity length and grating rotation

Abstract

We present a novel extended-cavity diode laser (ECDL) based on a modified Littrow configuration. The coarse wavelength adjustment via the rotation of a diffraction grating is decoupled from the fine tuning of the external cavity modes by positioning a piezo transducer behind the diode laser, making the laser robust against misalignment and hysteresis even with long external cavities. Two laser prototypes with external cavities of different lengths were tested with a 780 nm laser diode, and locked to an atomic reference. We observe a mode-hop-free frequency tunability broader than the free spectral range of the external cavity upon changes of its length. The design is well suited to atomic and molecular experiments demanding a high level of stability over time.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Interference-filter-stabilized external-cavity diode lasers
• Compact, robust, and spectrally pure diode-laser system with a filtered output and a tunable copy for absolute referencing

Cited by in corpus (3)

• A stable 671 nm external cavity diode laser with output power exceeding 150 mW suitable for laser cooling of lithium atoms
• Continuous frequency tuning of an external cavity diode laser significantly beyond the free spectral range by sweeping the injection current
• Three-dimensional angular deviation and diffraction efficiency of a grating in Littrow-configuration ECDL