We described a wavelength locked and spectral narrowed high-power diode laser with a Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF). By an external cavity with a 85Rb FADOF, the central wavelength of the diode laser was precisely locked to the Rb resonance D2 line. The bandwidth was narrowed from the free-running 4 nm to 0.002 nm (1.2 GHz, FWHM). At 4.9 A maximal driven current, the laser produced a continuous wave (CW) output of 18 W with an external cavity efficiency of 80%, either the current or the temperature had no impact on the central wavelength of the diode laser. The Rb cell works well without any damage under a long-time running. This ultra-stable and extreme-narrowed high power diode laser would find many applications in alkali lasers pumping, metastable rare gas laser pumping, spin-exchange optical pumping, and quantum optics.
A Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) could lock high-power diode lasers to atomic resonance lines with ultra-narrow bandwidth. However, the polarization sensitivity of the Faraday filter limits its applications since the standard diode module often employs polarization combination to increase pumping brightness. We proposed a polarization-insensitive mutual injection configuration to solve this problem and locked a standard polarization combined diode module to Rb D2-line. The laser bandwidth was narrowed from 4 nm to 0.005 nm (2.6 GHz, FWHM) with 38.3 W output and an external cavity efficiency of 80%. This FADOF-based polarization-insensitive external-cavity scheme would find many applications, such as high energy atomic gas laser pumping (alkali lasers, metastable rare gas lasers) and quantum optics, etc.
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