[Paco, Radhika]

We had previously noticed that the ECDL laser power seemed weaker compared to when we originally set it up and tested it. Today Paco opened it up and tweaked the grating inside to obtain a max power of 3 mW. This way, we could better resolve the 0th and 1st order beams coming out of the AOM.

Since we don't yet have a lens to send the collimated 1st-order beam to fiber, we connected a power meter to detect the beam and hooked it up to the oscilloscope. We noted peak diffraction at around 38.5 MHz (rough estimate). Using the inverse relationship between laser wavelength and the RF frequency , and the fact that the AOM is designed to operate at 1550 nm at 35 MHz, we calculated that the ECDL wavelength should be ~1409 nm. Of course this is a rough estimation, but it is a quick validation that we are indeed operating near 1418 nm.