Note: A four-pass acousto-optic modulator system for laser cooling of sodium atoms

We present a four-pass acousto-optic modulator (AOM) system for providing the repumping light for laser cooling of sodium atoms. With only one 400 MHz AOM, we achieve a tunable laser frequency shift around 1.6 GHz with total efficiency up to 30%. This setup provides an alternative over conventional methods to generate a sodium repumping light using more expensive high frequency AOMs or electro-optical modulators (EOMs) in the GHz domain. This compact and reliable setup can be easily adapted to other frequencies and may find applications in laser spectroscopy, laser cooling and trapping, and coherent manipulation of atomic quantum states.