Injection-Locking of Blue Laser Diodes and Its Application to the Laser Cooling of Neutral Ytterbium Atoms

Authors present a simple, laser-diode-based uv light source with sufficient power and narrow linewidth. In this scheme, an injection-locking technique was applied to a GaN blue laser diode (LD). By injecting approximately 5 mW output light of the external cavity laser diode (ECLD) into two free-running blue slave LDs, authors could obtain an output power of over 30 mW from the injection-locked slave LDs. The characterisitics of the injection-locked slave LD were studied. Authors also present an absolute frequency-locking scheme with about a 500 MHz locking bandwidth, where authors achieved offset-locking of the frequencies of two ECLDs. As an interesting example of the application of these developments, authors demonstrated laser cooling and trapping of ytterbium atoms. 18 refs.