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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics
Published on: April 24, 2014
Frequency-stabilized diode laser with the Zeeman shift in an atomic vapor
1JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA.
Abstract:
We demonstrate a robust method of stabilizing a diode laser frequency to an atomic transition. This technique employs the Zeeman shift to generate an antisymmetric signal about a Doppler-broadened atomic resonance, and therefore offers a large recapture range as well as high stability. The frequency of a 780-nm diode laser, stabilized to such a signal in Rb, drifted less than 0.5 MHz peak-peak (1 part in 10(9)) in 38 h. This tunable frequency lock can be constructed inexpensively, requires little laser power, rarely loses lock, and can be extended to other wavelengths by use of different atomic species.
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