Helium-neon lasers stabilized to iodine at 605 nm

Two ¹²⁷I2 transitions coincident with the ²⁰Ne emission at 605 nm have been identified. One of them is sufficiently intense for locking the laser frequency to one isolated hyperfine structure (HFS) component. The performances presently achieved are: a stability of 6 ∗ 10⁻¹³ ∗ ν for an integration time τ = 1000 s and a reproducibility of 200 kHz(4 ∗ 10⁻¹⁰ ∗ ν).