Two-tone frequency modulation saturation spectroscopy for tunable frequency offset locking of a single laser

Abstract The two-tone frequency modulation spectroscopy (TTFMS) is widely used for gas trace detection with its low noise absorption signal. In this paper we propose and implement the TTFMS scheme for frequency offset locking a single diode laser to an atomic resonance line by using its dispersion signal. The TTFMS theory is first discussed under the assumption that the intermediate modulation frequency is comparable to the linewidth of the absorption feature, and the dependence of the TTFMS absorption and dispersion features on the intermediate modulation frequency and modulation index are investigated theoretically. Based on a fiber-coupled electro-optic modulator (EOM) with two-tone modulation, we experimentally demonstrated the performance of the frequency offset locking method. The result shows a short-term frequency stability of the frequency offset locked laser reached around 1.1  ×  10 −11 , with an averaging time of 2 s. This method can find wide applications in fields requiring widely tunable frequency offset locking a single laser to the atomic resonance line, like precision spectroscopy and Raman optics for atom interferometers.