Coherent 420 nm laser beam generated by four-wave mixing in Rb vapor with a single continuous-wave laser

We demonstrate the generation of the coherent 420 nm laser via parametric four-wave mixing process in Rb vapor. A single 778 nm laser with circular polarization is directly injected into a high-density atomic vapor, which drives the atoms from the 5S_1/2 state to the 5D_5/2 state with monochromatic two-photon transition. The frequency up-conversion laser is generated by the parametric four-wave mixing process under the phase matching condition. This coherent laser is firstly certified by the knife-edge method and a narrow range grating spectrometer. Then the generated laser power is investigated in terms of the power and frequency of the incoming beam as well as the density of the atoms. Finally, a 420 nm coherent laser with power of 19 μW and beam quality of $M_x^2=1.32$, $M_y^2=1.37$ is obtained with optimal experimental parameters. This novel laser shows potential prospects in the measurement of material properties, information storage, and underwater optical communication. (paper)