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In the atomic research world, diode lasers are great because they’re cheap and fairly tunable. Many of atomic cooling studies done 20 years ago were done usin
by rubidium 7y ago
In the atomic research world, diode lasers are great because they’re cheap and fairly tunable.
Many of atomic cooling studies done 20 years ago were done using rubidium because it had a primary absorption wavelength that matched what commercial CD players used. This made the 780nm diodes dirt cheap.
Having new wavelengths of diode lasers makes certain basic research more accessible. I’ve been out of the field too long to know where this one may help but it’s exciting to see progress.
- fsh 7y agoNowadays in atomic physics frequency-quadrupled diode lasers are commonly used for accessing DUV wavelengths. They produce a lot of power and have narrow linewidths, but are very expensive (>> 100k€). Here is a chart from one manufacturer that shows commonly accessed transitions: https://www.toptica.com/fileadmin/Editors_English/15_downloads/TOPTICA_Laser_Absorption_in_Physics_Chemistry_Biology.png https://www.toptica.com/fileadmin/Editors_English/15_downloa... In the paper the authors only demonstrate pulsed operation of a bare laser diode. To make it usable for atomic physics, they would have to achieve continuous-wave operation with feedback from an external cavity. This might be pretty difficult to do.