Generating 500 mW for laser cooling of strontium atoms by injection locking a high power laser diode

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a simple, effective method to generate 500 mW of spectrally pure laser light at 460.86 nm for strontium atom cooling by injection locking a high power diode laser, with an innovative spectral purity monitoring technique.

Contribution

Introduces a novel, simplified technique for monitoring spectral purity in injection-locked lasers using a passive optical element, enhancing operational ease and adaptability.

Findings

Achieved 500 mW output power at 460.86 nm for laser cooling.

Developed a passive monitoring method using a narrow band interference filter.

Simplified daily operation of injection-locked laser diodes.

Abstract

We report on the generation of 500 mW of spectrally pure laser light at the 460.86 nm transition used for laser cooling of strontium atoms. To this end we inject a high power single mode laser diode with light from a stabilized extended cavity diode laser. To optimize and monitor the injection status and the spectral purity of the slave diode we developed a novel technique that uses a single passive optical element. A narrow band interference filter generates a suitable monitoring signal without any additional electronics for post processing of the data. Our method greatly simplifies the daily operation of injection locked laser diodes and can be easily adapted to other wavelengths of interest.