Robust external cavity diode lasers with implemented antirefl ection coated “blue” laser diodes and their performance in atom absorption spectroscopy

Compared to traditional lasers, diode lasers are generally small, reliable and easy to operate. However, tuning characteristics of many commercially available standard diode lasers are often far from ideal. External Cavity Diode Lasers (ECDL), in which antirefl ection (AR) coated Fabry Perot laser diodes can be utilized, provide an attractive alternative with wavelength tuning ranges of up to 100 nm, linewidths of several hundred kHz and cw-power of up to 200 mW. They are small-sized and suitable for electronic high frequency modulation which makes these light sources desirable for sensor application. [1] Recent improvements of room temperature diode laser technology for data storage applications have given rise to enhanced availability of semi conductor lasers with wavelengths in the blue spectral region, which have suitable beamprofi les and reasonable lifetimes (>5000 h). Sacher Lasertechnik has developed AR-coatings for these diodes in order to optimise the performance of our TEC 100-Littrow and TEC 500-Littman lasersystems.