1W High Power External Cavity Diode Laser Targets Titan Sapphire Laser
Sacher Lasertechnik offers a new 780nm external cavity diode laser system with 1W diffraction limited output power a new member of their TIGER Series.

Description: 

The single stage laser system offers more than 1000mW output power at 780nm with a narrow linewidth in the order of 1MHz, a sidemode suppression better than 50dB, and an excellent diffraction limited beam quality of M² < 1.7. The total tuning range exceeds 20nm. The mode-hop free tuning range is up to 25GHz, performed by a piezo actuator . 

Highest Power Values:

This high amount of output power of the laser system is a result of a straight forward product improvement of the well established TIGER Series. Each power critical component of the laser system was carefully investigated and improved for being able to handle this output power. The result is now commercially available at the newest member of our TIGER Series.

Application:

Applications of the 1W, 780nm tunable TIGER include optical cooling and trapping of Rb, high brightness Raman spectroscopy. Special advantages of this laser system are the small size of just a bit more than a matchbox, the low energy consumption and the user friendly handling in comparison with Titan Sapphire lasers.

Sacher Lasertechnik Group has modified their Littrow cavity design in order to improve the performance data of the tunable external cavity diode laser.

Commercially available diode lasers with external cavity in Littrow design show severe disadvantages since light is usually coupled out via the zero order of the diffraction grating. The developers at Sacher Lasertechnik Group redesigned the Littrow cavity resulting in major improvements compared with conventionally available Littrow systems, e.g. the laser beam is coupled out of the laser system via the back facet of the diode laser achieving higher quality of the external cavity.

The advantages of the Lynx Littrow design are of high significance in laser spectroscopy:
1. The polarization ratio is now improved by the cavity. Typical values go up to 1:200 or higher.
2. The side mode suppression of the laser system has drastically improved. Typical values go up to 55dB.
3. The total tuning range as well as the mode-hop free tuning range are drastically extended.
4. Beam walk when changing the wavelength by adjusting the grating angle does no longer occur.

In summary, the new Sacher design will set new standards in the design of tunable external cavity diode lasers.

The 780nm Lynx System offers more than 150mW peak output power with total tuning range of 770nm ... 795nm. The 850nm Lynx System will be released in February 2004.