Grating choices:

In the literature, people seem to use 1800/mm spacing. Attached are efficiency graphs found on Thorlabs for 1200/mm and 1800/mm spacing. At 1064nm (which is where we are interested in tuning to), the efficiency drops off for the 1800/mm spacing grating. This could be fixed if we use an angle close to perpendicular, or we may be better off using the 1200/mm grating, which has an average efficiency of about 35% at 1064nm, vs an average of 20% for the 1800/mm grating. It is a question of efficiency vs. resolution. 

Current Controller:

We are currently examining a current controller designed by Libbrecht and Hall (1993), since it has been shown to have lower noise than before. There is a commercially available controller based on the design from their paper (http://www.vescent.com/products/electronics/d2-105-laser-controller/). I did some literature search and it seems that there was a design by Erickson (2008) which is an improvement on the design by Libbrecht and Hall. This paper is attached... we may try to use this design instead. Tara and I will meet on Thursday to determine if the requirements we want to have on our experiment to have low noise, and then choose whether to pursue the Erickson controller further.