Stable 811.53Â nm diode laser pump source for optically pumped metastable Ar laser

A stable external cavity diode laser coupled with volume Bragg grating for metastable argon atoms pumping is presented. The measured maximum output power of the continuous wave is 6.5 W when the spectral width (FWHM) is less than 21 pm around 811.53 nm and the power efficiency is 68%. The tuning range of the emission wavelength is bigger than 270 pm. The calculated deviation in relative absorption efficiency caused by the fluctuations of wavelength and power is less than 4%.