Modulight’s in-house vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) technology integration into ML6600 laser cores paves the way for Barium trapped ion applications at wavelengths 493 nm, 532 nm and 553 nm, featuring free-running linewidth of <100 kHz with Watt-level emission. Linewidth can be further narrowed using linewidth narrowing techniques such as Pound-Drever Hall method and a stable reference. Modulight ML6600 VECSEL laser platform offers scalable and tunable high-power single-frequency emission pumped by inexpensive multimode lasers.
VECSELs possess several advantages as a narrow linewidth laser platform. The external high-finesse laser resonator provides robust emission engineering: power scaling, efficient intracavity frequency conversion, wide wavelength tunability, while maintaining single transverse and single-longitudinal mode operation with excellent beam quality. VECSELs exhibit relaxation oscillation-free dynamics and very low intensity noise values. Low-noise pump diode driving electronics equipped with intensity stabilization loop helps to decrease the pump-induced carrier and thermal fluctuations allowing to significantly reduce the laser phase noise. Integrated piezo-controlled dynamic cavity length adjustment enables stable locking to an external reference.
Modulight’s VECSEL platform finds applications in Ba+ ion Doppler cooling at S-P transition (493 nm), Ba ion gate seed (532 nm), and resonant two-step photoionization of neutral Barium (553 nm). The broad gain, tunability and tailorability of VECSEL platform allows utilizing the same laser for multiple visible and infrared transitions, e.g. 1108 and 1131 nm which may be utilized as repump in photoionization process.
