A widely tunable CW Raman laser in H/sub 2/ pumped by an external-cavity diode laser

Summary form only given. The first continuous wave nonresonant Raman laser was accomplished by Brasseur, et al., in 1998. The system was pumped by a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser and showed a 2-mW Stokes threshold indicating the possibility of diode pumping. Roos, et al., then demonstrated a CW Raman laser pumped by a free-running diode and employing a passive optical locking technique. However accurate wavelength selectivity is difficult with the passively locked system and the tuning range is limited. The authors demonstrate a CW Raman laser pumped by an external cavity diode laser (ECDL). A 40-nm tuning range of the Stokes emission is achieved by tuning the ECDL pump source.