External-cavity broad-area laser diode operating on the D(1) line of cesium

We present an external-cavity laser diode characterized by an intracavity cylinder lens to compensate for the astigmatism of the laser. This setup was applied to a broad-area laser diode operating on the D(1) line of the cesium atom at 894 nm, yielding single-mode emission. A saturated-absorption experiment on that atomic line tested the laser performance.