A Power Efficient Faraday Laser at 780nm Rb Transition

Summarywe report on the development of a power efficient Faraday laser working at 780nm Rb transition using an atomic vapor Faraday filter as a frequency-selecting element. In the routine linear-cavity of Faraday laser, a partial reflectivity cavity mirror was used as output coupler. In this work, a high-reflection mirror (R>99.98%) replaces the partial reflectivity cavity mirror, the transmitted light of the Faraday optical filter is fully used as feedback beam and for frequency selection, while the light with polarization perpendicular to the transmitted part from the second polarizing beam splitter (PBS2) of Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) is output. Single frequency laser is obtained at 780 nm Rb transition over a range of laser diode (LD) current from 60 to 140 mA. Such a single-frequency laser will be an excellent optical frequency standard by frequency stabilization technique.