Design Of A Low-Threshold Vecsel Emitting At 852 Nm For Cesium Atomic Clocks

Benjamin Cocquelin (1) , Gaëlle Lucas-Leclin (1) , Patrick Georges (1) , Isabelle Sagnes (2) , Arnaud Garnache (3, 4)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Elsa
2 LPN - Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures
3 IES - Institut d’Electronique et des Systèmes
4 TéHO - Térahertz, hyperfréquence et optique

This work reports on an optically-pumped vertical external-cavity surface- emitting laser (VECSEL) emitting around 852 nm for Cesium atomic clocks experiments. We describe in the following our first results on the design and the characterization of a VECSEL's semiconductor structure suitable for these applications. We optimized the parameters of the structure in order to have a low threshold and a high gain structure emitting around 852 nm. With a compact setup, we obtained a 5-mW single frequency emission exhibiting broad and fine tunability around the Cesium D2 line.

Keywords: VECSEL; Optically pumped semiconductor; Single-frequency emission; Cesium atomic clocks

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]; Optics / Photonic

Benjamin Cocquelin, Gaëlle Lucas-Leclin, Patrick Georges, Isabelle Sagnes, Arnaud Garnache. Design Of A Low-Threshold Vecsel Emitting At 852 Nm For Cesium Atomic Clocks. Optical and Quantum Electronics, 2008, 40 (2-4), pp.167-173. ⟨10.1007/s11082-007-9170-9⟩. ⟨hal-00522804⟩