Frequency locking of tunable diode lasers to a rubidium-stabilized ring-cavity resonator.

We demonstrate a technique for locking the frequency of a tunable diode laser to a ring-cavity resonator. The resonator is stabilized to a diode laser that is in turn locked to an atomic transition in rubidium, thus giving it absolute frequency calibration. The principal advantage of the ring-cavity design is that there is no feedback destabilization of the laser. The cavity has a free-spectral range of 1.3 GHz and Q of approximately 35, which provides robust locking of the laser. The locked laser is able to track large scans of the cavity.