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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

Optically pumped atomic thulium lasers

J. C. White, Jeffrey Bokor A, Don O. Henderson

Published Mar 1, 1982• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

A thulium vapor column is irradiated with the fourth harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser at 266 nm. The near coincidence with a dipole allowed transition from ground state results in efficient optical pumping yielding 87 simultaneous superfluorescent laser transitions from 300 to 900 nm. Many of the emissions are due to inversions to the ground state of both neutral and singly ionized Tm atoms.

DOI
10.1109/jqe.1982.1071533

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A thulium vapor column is irradiated with the fourth harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser at 266 nm. The near coincidence with a dipole allowed transition from ground state results in efficient optical pumping yielding 87 simultaneous superfluorescent laser transitions from 300 to 900 nm. Many of the emissions are due to inversions to the ground state of both neutral and singly ionized Tm atoms.
We propose to use the magnetic-dipole transition at coupling two ground state fine-structure components of thulium (Tm), as a 'clock transition' in optical clocks. We have demonstrated first stage laser cooling of Tm atoms down to a temperature of 25 K using a strong transition at and we have also shown preliminary results for second stage cooling using a weaker transition at (natural linewidth γ G = 350 kHz). Laser cooled atoms have been trapped in an optical dipole trap and in a 1D optical lattice operating near 532 nm.
Clock transition at 1.14μm1.14 \mu \mathrm{m}1.14μm in neutral thulium is a promising candidate for compact and robust transportable optical clock due to its extremely low sensitivity to external electric and magnetic fields. Cold Tm atoms are now used in optical lattice clocks, quantum simulators and for the study of Bose-Einstein condensation and cold collision physics. In this work, we discuss experimentally measured absolute frequencies of the two transitions at 410.6 nm and 530.7 nm, used for laser cooling of thulium atoms, transition at 418.8 nm used for optical pumping and clock transition at 1140 nm. Using accurate laser spectroscopy in an ensemble of cold thulium atoms, we measured frequencies of these transitions using an optical frequency comb, which was referenced to an active hydrogen maser. Transition frequencies were measured with an uncertainty at one tenth of their natural linewidth, which is sufficient for cooling and pumping of thulium atoms. The uncertainty of the clock transition frequency is 30 Hz, which was limited by the maser frequency calibration with GNSS. Our results can find application in existing experiments with cold thulium atoms and especially in new projects.
Laser cooling is a necessary tool to generate ultracold atoms in magneto-optical traps (MOT), as atomic transitions can be excited with lasers to address different energy levels. As these transitions differ for each quantum system, flexibility in delivering the right wavelength and power at the atoms is key for viable quantum devices or experiments. In our work, we present custom laser systems at the edges of the thulium emission range for improving barium and strontium atoms trapping experiments [1]. Two of barium's narrow atomic transitions can be directly addressed with lasers at 1762 nm and 2052 nm, while third harmonic generation from 2067 nm and 2095 nm allows to address the red MOT cooling and the clock transitions in strontium at 689 nm and 698 nm.
Because of the low sensitivity of a thulium optical clock to black-body radiation and good accuracy and stability estimations, it is considered as a promising transportable optical clock. One of the leading systematic effects for Tm clock transition, i.e., the second-order Zeeman effect, can be canceled by probing two clock transitions between different hyperfine levels of ground and metastable states during clock operation. Herein, we demonstrate efficient optical pumping into the mF=0{m}_{F}=0mF​=0 state of both ground hyperfine levels using single-frequency radiation at 418.8 nm. We prepared the atoms in both target states simultaneously and excited two clock transitions alternately. The resulting population of mF=0{m}_{F}=0mF​=0 states of ground hyperfine levels was 36% and 3.8% of the initial number of atoms with less than 4% and 0.4% on nonzero magnetic sublevels, respectively. We performed numerical simulations of the optical pumping process, which is able to explain experimental results well.
This is the first reported demonstration of the use of pair-absorption transitions for optically pumping lasers. In a mixture of barium and thallium metal vapors, single-photon absorption of 3867-A laser light caused simultaneous excitation of colliding ground-state atoms to the Ba(6s6p 1P1(o)) and Tl(6p 2P(3/2)(o)) excited states. Excited-state densities of about 10(14) cm(-3) were created, and subsequent laser emission on the Ba(6s6p 1PI(o)) - Ba(6s5d 1D2) atomic transition at 1.5 microm was observed.
The possibility of using stimulated emission to improve the optical pumping of Tm3+ ions embedded in Tm3+:YAG to the 3F4 level is explored. The oscillator strengths and the frequencies of the transitions between the ground crystal field level of 3H4 to the different crystal field levels of 3F4 are measured at low temperature. Stimulated emission measurements at 1461 nm are performed to evaluate the optical pumping efficiency. Application to the spectral tailoring of Tm3+:YAG for quantum information applications is discussed.