A long-term frequency stabilized deep ultraviolet laser for Mg+ ions trapping experiments

J. Zhang, W. H. Yuan, K. Deng, A.Deng, Z. T. Xu, C. B. Qin, Z. H. Lu, and J. Luo

Rev. Sci. Instrum.84, 123109 (2013).

As many precision laser spectroscopy experiments require frequency stabilized lasers, development of long-term stabilized lasers is of great interest. In this work, we report long-term frequency stabilization of a 280 nm deep ultraviolet laser to a high precision wavemeter with digital servo control such that the long-term drift of the laser frequency was greatly reduced. Long-term laser frequency drift was measured with a fiber frequency comb system over 8 h. After locking, the maximum drift rate of the 280 nm laser was lowered from 576 MHz/h to 6.4 MHz/h. With proper environment control of the wavemeter, the maximum drift rate of the 280 nm laser was further lowered to less than 480 kHz/h. The locked laser system was successfully used in a Mg⁺ions trapping experiment, which was also discussed in this work.