Abstract
We studied the polarization properties of a short internal-mirror 612 nm He-Ne laser. We found that polarization flip did not occur at the symmetric two-mode location but near the center of the power profile. Therefore, the laser could be frequency-stabilized using the two-mode method, and the stability achieved was better than 5 x 10 -10 . This laser can be used as a light source in length measurements using multi-color interferometers. We studied the polarization properties of a short internal-mirror 612 nm He-Ne laser. We found that polarization flip did not occur at the symmetric two-mode location but near the center of the power profile. Therefore, the laser could be frequency-stabilized using the two-mode method, and the stability achieved was better than 5×10 -10 . This laser can be used as a light source in length measurements using multi-color interferometers.