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arXiv:2111.06076 · Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Birefringent atomic vapor laser lock in a hollow cathode lamp

Takumi Sato, Yusuke Hayakawa, Naohiro Okamoto, Yusuke Shimomura, T. Aoki, Yoshio Torii

Published Nov 10, 2021• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report a robust method of stabilizing a laser to the frequency of an atomic transition using a hollow cathode lamp. In contrast to the standard dichroic atomic vapor laser lock method, which uses dichroism induced by a longitudinal magnetic field, we employ birefringence induced by a transversal magnetic field. We applied this method to the ( 5 s 2 ) 1 S 0 − ( 5 s 5 p ) 1 P 1 transition (461 nm) of Sr. Although the hollow cathode is made of ferromagnetic material, we successfully applied a magnetic field of sufficient strength to obtain an error signal with a theoretical maximum slope. This method may be applied to other hollow cathode lamps of different atomic species.

DOI
10.1364/josab.442465

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We report a robust method of stabilizing a laser to the frequency of an atomic transition using a hollow cathode lamp. In contrast to the standard dichroic atomic vapor laser lock method, which uses dichroism induced by a longitudinal magnetic field, we employ birefringence induced by a transversal magnetic field. We applied this method to the ( 5 s 2 ) 1 S 0 − ( 5 s 5 p ) 1 P 1 transition (461 nm) of Sr. Although the hollow cathode is made of ferromagnetic material, we successfully applied a magnetic field of sufficient strength to obtain an error signal with a theoretical maximum slope. This method may be applied to other hollow cathode lamps of different atomic species.
We study the magnetic-field-induced dichroism on a sample of gallium neutral atoms created in a hollow cathode lamp and describe a method for robust stabilization of violet-blue diode lasers tuned on gallium atomic transitions for an atom nanofabrication experiment. We compare the experimental dichroic signals with theoretical simulations obtained by the solving of the exact atom-field interaction Hamiltonian. We find excellent agreement when considering the magnetic field shielding from the hollow cathode. This method allows for a wide range of frequency tuning, modulation-free locking, and long-term stability of external-cavity diode lasers. From analysis of a square root Allan variance we have achieved a stability of 1 MHz at 1-s average time.
The modulation transfer spectroscopy in an ytterbium hollow cathode lamp at 399 nm is measured. The error signal for frequency locking is optimized by measuring the dependences of its slope, linewidth and magnitude on various parameters. Under the optimum condition, the laser frequency at 399 nm can be stabilized. The long-term stability of laser frequency is measured by monitoring the fluorescence signal of the ytterbium atomic beam induced by the locked laser. The laser frequency is shown to be tightly locked, and the stabilized laser is successfully applied to the cooling of ytterbium atoms.
We report on the demonstration of Doppler-free spectroscopy of metastable Sr atoms using a hollow cathode lamp (HCL). We employed a custom Sr HCL, which is filled with a mixture of 0.5 Torr Ne and 0.5 Torr Xe as a buffer gas to suppress velocity changing collisions and increase the populations in all of the (5s5p)3PJ(J=0,1,2) metastable states. We performed frequency modulation spectroscopy for the (5s5p)3P0−(5s6s)3S1, (5s5p)3P1−(5s6s)3S1, (5s5p)3P2−(5s5d)3D2, and (5s5p)3P2−(5s5d)3D3 transitions with sufficient signal-to-noise ratios for laser frequency stabilization. We also observed the hyperfine transitions of (5s5p)3P2−(5s5d)3D3 of Sr87. This method would greatly facilitate laser cooling of Sr.
We present a method of laser frequency stabilization based on the linear dichroism signal in a transverse magnetic field. This method is similar to the DAVLL (Dichroic Atomic Vapor Laser Lock) method. It differs from DAVLL and from its existing modifications primarily by the fact that it uses signals of linearly polarized light caused by alignment, rather than circular refraction caused by orientation, and therefore allows us to obtain error signals at the magnetic field modulation frequency (or its second harmonic) by extremely simple means. The method allows the laser frequency to be stabilized in the vicinity of the low-frequency transition in the D1 line of Cs; it does not require strong magnetic fields or careful shielding of cells containing cesium atoms. Although the absorption line in a gas-filled cell is typically gigahertz wide, the achievable resolution, limited by the signal-to-noise ratio of photon shot noise, can reach units or tens of kilohertz in a one hertz bandwidth.
A robust laser-frequency-locking scheme to atomic transitions is proposed and demonstrated. In this scheme, dispersion of the Zeeman-shifted atoms instead of absorption in the dichroic atomic vapor laser lock (DAVLL) [Appl. Opt.37, 3295 (1998)] is measured and used as an error signal for stabilization feedback. The error signal of the proposed scheme can provide a wide locking range. Experimental demonstration with the transition between 5d 2D3/2 and 6p 2P1/2 of Ba+ is carried out for a grating feedback external-cavity laser diode at 650 nm.