Long term laser frequency control for application in atomic physics

Abstract

An improvement to the saturated absorption technique of long term stabilization of lasers is reported. This new method enables stabilization to the centre of saturated absorption features regardless of whether the peaks are symmetric or asymmetric. Another feature of the locking system is its ability to stabilize the laser at precisely known small detunings from the centre of the absorption line. The locking system has been applied to both dye laser and titanium sapphire laser systems. The long term drift for each was measured to be smaller than the laser jitter bandwidth of about 1 MHz for periods of hours, and no mode hops were recorded over several weeks of operation.