Method to investigate the symmetry of saturated absorption signals by means of laser frequency locking techniques

It is shown that the line shape of a saturated absorption signal — especially its symmetry — can be investigated by combining laser frequency locking methods. The laser frequencyv, modulated with a frequencyf, is stabilized alternatively to the zero crossings of the synchronously detected 2f and 3f absorption signals. In addition, almost any other part of the profile can be tested by locking the laser frequency to neighboruing points of the zero crossings by using an offset technique. With two prestabilized Ar⁺ lasers atv=582 THz the symmetry of different¹²⁷ I ₂ hfs signals was investigated with an uncertainty of typically 2×10^–12 v or 10^–3 halfwidths.