Single-frequency tunable VECSEL around the Cesium D2 line

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 surface­emitting laser (VECSEL) emitting around 852 nm for Cesium atomic clocks experiments. We describe the design and the characterization of a VECSEL semiconductor structure suitable for these applications. The parameters of the structure have been optimized in order to have a low threshold and a high gain structure emitting around 852 nm. We achieved an output power of 330 mW for 1.1 W of incident pump power. We are able to simulate the laser emission variations with the temperature of the substrate, the pump radius on the semiconductor structure and the losses inside cavity. A compact and robust setup was built to obtain a stable single-frequency emission. We obtained a 17-mW single frequency emission exhibiting broad and fine tunability around the Cesium D2 line.

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

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

Benjamin Cocquelin, Gaëlle Lucas-Leclin, Patrick Georges, Isabelle Sagnes, Arnaud Garnache. Single-frequency tunable VECSEL around the Cesium D2 line. Photonics West - LASE 2008, Jan 2008, San Jose, United States. pp.687112.1-687112.9, ⟨10.1117/12.763119⟩. ⟨hal-00531358⟩