A simple and low-cost setup for part per billion level frequency stabilization and characterization of red He-Ne laser

Abstract

This work describes the frequency stabilization of a dual longitudinal mode, red (632.8 nm) He-Ne laser, implemented using an open source low-cost microcontroller (Arduino Uno) and its performance characterization using a simple interferometric method. Our studies demonstrate that frequency stability up to 0.42 MHz (3σ, 17 h) can be achieved using this setup. This simple and low-cost system can serve as an excellent part per billion level frequency reference for high-resolution spectroscopy based applications.

Keywords

• Frequency stabilized lasers
• Helium neon laser
• Fizeau interferometer
• Arduino Uno