Vibrational analysis of stabilized lasers

Frequency-stabilized lasers are routinely used in a variety of research and application areas relating to laser-cooled atoms. Important applications in the cold-atom regime include atomic time keeping, inertial navigation, gravitational sensing, and magnetometry. The number of applications based on frequency stabilized lasers is increasing and at the same time, there is a push to miniaturize devices base on these applications. As devices become smaller and more mobile, it will become increasingly important to be able to measure and understand the effects of vibration on the individual devices as a whole, as well as the frequency-stabilized laser subsystems. Here we present preliminary vibration studies of a lab-built laser system based on a monolithic semiconductor laser diode frequency stabilized to the D2 transition in ⁸⁷Rb using FM saturated absorption spectroscopy.