Japanese Journal of Applied Physics
Laser Cooling of Ca+ Ions and Observation of Collision Effects
Shinji Urabe, Kazuhiro Hayasaka, Masayoshi Watanabe, Hidetsuka Imajo, R. Ohmukai
Abstract
This paper describes our recent experimental results on trapping and laser cooling of Ca+ ions. The measurement of the characteristics of laser-cooled Ca+ ions in an rf quadrupole ion trap, such as the fluorescence line shape and phase transition, is described. Observation of two types of collision-induced “quantum jumps” of a Ca+ ion in a background gas of H2 or air is also described. Since the rate of the collision-induced jumps is very high for Ca+, it is necessary to achieve an extremely high vacuum condition for frequency standard applications.