English

A simple, powerful diode laser system for atomic physics

Instrumentation and Detectors 2021-07-08 v2

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>210\,mW, 100100\,ms-linewidth (427±7427 \pm 7) kHz, >99%>99\% mode purity, 1010\,GHz mode-hop-free tuning range and 1212\,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 101010^{10} 87^{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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2104.06019,
  title  = {A simple, powerful diode laser system for atomic physics},
  author = {Andrew Daffurn and Rachel F. Offer and Aidan S. Arnold},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.06019},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T01:06:42.778Z