Efficient pumping of Rb vapor by high-power volume Bragg diode laser

A 2W cw laser diode (LD) with an external cavity produced by a reflecting volume Bragg grating (VBG) demonstrated a spectral width of 7GHz (full width at half-maximum) at 780nm. The device output power exceeded 90% of the output power of the free-running LD. The emission wavelength was tuned over a 300pm range by thermal control of the VBG. Rb vapor was shown to absorb more than 95% of the laser radiation.