Frequency stability comparison of diode lasers locked to Doppler and sub-Doppler resonances

We present a systematic quantitative comparison of the performance parameters of two Extended Cavity Diode Lasers (ECDL), stabilized to Doppler and sub-Doppler profiles. The experimental study is carried out on Rb atomic vapour cells. The frequency shift of the resonance under investigation with respect to a reference resonance is measured and analyzed, in dependence on the modulation amplitude, cell temperature, laser power, applied magnetic field and misalignment of the pump-probe beams angle. The Allan variance is measured for both locking methods. It shows that the stabilization to the Doppler profile results in about one order of magnitude lower stability than the one to SA resonances for the short-term measurement. However, the stability achieved using both methods is sufficient for many applications and for some of them the simplicity of the Doppler locking method can be advantageous.