Frequency stabilization of an external-cavity diode laser to metastable argon atoms in a discharge

A laser stabilization scheme using magnetic dichroism in a RF plasma discharge is presented. This method has been used to provide a frequency stable external-cavity diode laser that is locked to the 4s[3/2](2) -> 4p[5/2](3) argon laser cooling transition at 811.53 nm. Using saturated absorption spectroscopy, we lock the laser to a Doppler free peak which gave a locking range of 20 MHz when the slope of the error signal was maximized. The stability of the laser was characterized by determining the square root Allan variance of laser frequency fluctuations when the laser was locked. A stability of 129 kHz was measured at 1 s averaging time for data acquired over 6000 s. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4729793]