A simple laser system for atom interferometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simplified laser system for atom interferometry that uses only two laser diodes and a common amplifier, enabling efficient cooling, interferometry, and detection in a compact setup.

Contribution

The authors develop a minimalistic laser system with integrated functions for atom interferometry, utilizing a novel locking and tuning scheme with FPGA-controlled DDS.

Findings

Achieved gravimeter performance close to state-of-the-art

Simplified laser setup reduces complexity and cost

Demonstrated effective laser locking and tuning methods

Abstract

We present here a simple laser system for a laser cooled atom interferometer, where all functions (laser cooling, interferometry and detection) are realized using only two extended cavity laser diodes, amplified by a common tapered amplifier. One laser is locked by frequency modulation transfer spectroscopy, the other being phase locked with an offset frequency determined by an Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) controlled Direct Digital Synthesizer (DDS), which allows for efficient and versatile tuning of the laser frequency. Raman lasers are obtained with a double pass acousto-optic modulator. We demonstrate a gravimeter using this laser system, with performances close to the state of the art.