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Optics Express

An all-optical locking of a semiconductor laser to the atomic resonance line with 1 MHz accuracy

Xiaogang Zhang, Zhiming Tao, Chuanwen Zhu, Yelong Hong, Wei Zhuang, Jingbiao Chen

Published Nov 7, 2013• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An all-optical locking technique without extra electrical feedback control system for a semiconductor laser has been used in stabilizing the laser frequency to a hyperfine crossover transition of 87Rb 5(2)S(1/2), F = 2 → 5(2)P(3/2), F' = 2, 3 with 1 MHz level accuracy. The optical feedback signal is generated from the narrow-band Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) with nonlinear saturation effect. The peak transmission of the narrow-band FADOF corresponding to 5(2)S(1/2), F = 2 → 5(2)P(3/2), F' = 2, 3 crossover transition is 18.6 %. The bandwidth is as wide as 38.9 MHz as the laser frequency changes. After locking, the laser frequency fluctuation is reduced to 1.7 MHz. The all-optical laser locking technique can be improved to much higher accuracy with increased external cavity length. The laser we have realized can provide light exactly resonant with atomic transitions used for other atom-light interaction experiments.

DOI
10.1364/oe.21.028010

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An all-optical locking technique without extra electrical feedback control system for a semiconductor laser has been used in stabilizing the laser frequency to a hyperfine crossover transition of 87Rb 5(2)S(1/2), F = 2 → 5(2)P(3/2), F' = 2, 3 with 1 MHz level accuracy. The optical feedback signal is generated from the narrow-band Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) with nonlinear saturation effect. The peak transmission of the narrow-band FADOF corresponding to 5(2)S(1/2), F = 2 → 5(2)P(3/2), F' = 2, 3 crossover transition is 18.6 %. The bandwidth is as wide as 38.9 MHz as the laser frequency changes. After locking, the laser frequency fluctuation is reduced to 1.7 MHz. The all-optical laser locking technique can be improved to much higher accuracy with increased external cavity length. The laser we have realized can provide light exactly resonant with atomic transitions used for other atom-light interaction experiments.
The dual-frequency Faraday laser, utilizing the two-peak transmission of a Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF), can achieve simultaneous lasing on two modes both determined by the atomic transition. The beating frequency between the two modes is close to the frequency interval between hyperfine energy levels of the atomic ground state. Since the frequency of the beat signal and output laser modes all depend on the cavity length, locking one of them can also improve the stability of the others. Therefore, by locking the beat frequency to a stable microwave frequency reference, the stability of the reference can be transferred to the laser frequencies; Similarly, locking one of the output laser frequencies will also transfer its stability to the beat frequency in the microwave regime. This can serve as a means to bridge the gap between the optical and microwave frequency regimes, and can have wide applications, such as absolute frequency measurement of a laser, or photonic microwave generation.
In the development of atomic physics, laser sources with Frequencies corresponding to atomic transition and high stability are essential. The Faraday laser is a special diode laser using the Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) to realize frequency selection, so the output laser frequency is automatically limited to the atomic Doppler broadening. However, the frequency of a Faraday laser corresponds to the range around only one atomic hyperfine transition. Here, we realize a switchable Faraday laser with two isotopes laser frequencies corresponding to 85Rb 52S1/2 (F=3)→52P3/2 and 87Rb 52S1/2 (F=2)→52P3/2 transitions based on a single isotope 87Rb-FADOF. The laser has good robustness against the fluctuation of diode current and temperature, with wavelength fluctuating within 0.8 pm from 16 to 30 °C of diode temperature, and has a free-running linewidth of 18 kHz. We also lock the laser frequency to the two cycling transitions of 85Rb 52S1/2 (F=3)→52P3/2 (F′=4) and 87Rb 52S1/2 (F=2)→52P3/2 (F′=3) by the modulation transfer spectroscopy technique. The Allan deviation of the residual error signal is 3×10−14/τ, and the frequency stability of the beat detection reaches 2.8×10−12 at 1 s integration time. This 780 nm switchable Faraday laser expands the application scenarios of Faraday lasers, which can be used in laser cooling atoms, optical frequency standards, and other quantum precision measurement fields.
Abstract We demonstrate a Faraday laser using a 1.2 km fiber as an extended cavity, which provides optical feedback and obtains small free spectrum range (FSR) of 83 kHz, and have succeeded in limiting the laser frequency to a crossover transition 5 2 S 1 / 2 , F = 2 → 5 2 P 3 / 2 , F ′ = 1 , 3 of the natural 87 Rb at 780 nm. The Faraday laser is based on a Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) with an ultra-narrow bandwidth and the long fiber extended cavity of 1.2 km. The peak transmission assigned to the crossover transition F = 2 → F ′ = 1 , 3 in the FADOF is 20.5% with an ultra-narrow bandwidth of 29.1 MHz. The Allan deviation of the Faraday laser is around 6.0 × 10 − 11 in 0.06 to 1 s sampling time. Laser frequency is always kept in the center of the transmitted peak assigned to F = 2 → F ′ = 1 , 3 . The Faraday laser realized here can provide light exactly resonant with an atomic transition used for atom–photon interaction experiments and is insensitive to diode temperature and injection current fluctuations.
We demonstrate an extended cavity Faraday laser system using an antireflection-coated laser diode as the gain medium and the isotope (87)Rb Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) as the frequency selective device. Using this method, the laser wavelength works stably at the highest transmission peak of the isotope (87)Rb FADOF over the laser diode current from 55 to 140 mA and the temperature from 15°C to 35°C. Neither the current nor the temperature of the laser diode has significant influence on the output frequency. Compared with previous extended cavity laser systems operating at frequencies irrelevant to spectacular atomic transition lines, the laser system realized here provides a stable laser source with the frequency operating on atomic transitions for many practical applications.
Atomic optical filters such as Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filters (FADOFs) or similar technologies can achieve very narrow optical bandwidth close to the scale of atomic linewidth, which can be greatly reduced in cold atoms. However, limited by the number of cold atoms and the size of the cold atomic cloud, the number of atoms interacting with the laser is reduced, and the transmission remains as low as 2%. In this work, we introduce the optical pumping into the cold atomic optical filter to solve this problem. Circular polarized optical pumping can produce polarization of the atomic ensemble and induce dichromatic as well as the Faraday rotation. We demonstrate a cold-atom optical filter which operates on the 87Rb 52S1/2 (F=2) to 52P3/2 (F′=2) transition at 780 nm. The filter achieves an ultranarrow bandwidth of 6.6(4) MHz, and its peak transmission is 15.6%, which is nearly 14 times higher than that of the cold-atom optical filter realized by Faraday magneto-optic effect. This scheme can be extended to almost all kinds of atomic optical filters and may find applications in self-stabilizing laser and active optical clock.