High coherent bi-chromatic laser with gigahertz splitting produced by the high diffraction orders of acousto-optic modulator used for coherent population trapping experiments

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To prepare the coherent population trapping (CPT) states with rubidium and cesium, the commonly used atoms in CPT studies, a coherent bi-chromatic light field with frequency difference of several GHz is a basic requirement. With a 200 MHz center frequency acousto-optic modulator (AOM), we have realized bi-chromatic laser fields with several GHz frequency splits through high diffraction orders. We have experimentally studied the coherence between two frequency components of a bi-chromatic laser beam, which is composed of ±6 orders with frequency split of 3 GHz diffracted from the same laser beam, and the measured residual phase noise is Δφ(2)<0.019 rad(2). The bi-chromatic laser fields were used to prepare CPT states with (85)Rb and (87)Rb atoms, and high contrast CPT signals were obtained. For CPT states preparation, our study result shows that it is a feasible approach to generate the bi-chromatic light field with larger frequency splits through high diffraction orders of AOM.