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Quantum Electronics

Secondary laser cooling and capturing of thulium atoms in traps

Денис Дмитриевич Сукачев, Елена Сергеевна Калганова, А. В. Соколов, S A Fedorov, Gulnara A. Vishnyakova, Alexey V. Akimov, N. Kolachevsky, В. Н. Сорокин

Published Jun 30, 2014• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Secondary laser cooling has been realised on the weak dipole transition 4f13(2Fo)6s2, J = 7/2, F=4 → 4f12(3H6) 5d5/26s2, J' = 9/2, F' = 5 with the wavelength of 530.7 nm and natural width of 350 kHz. The temperature of the atomic cloud in a magnetooptical trap (MOT) was 30 μK at the lifetime of 2 s and the number of atoms 105. Approximately 1% of atoms from the MOT have been reloaded to an optical dipole trap and to one-dimensional optical lattice at the wavelength of 532 nm. The atom lifetime in the optical lattice was 320 ms. We propose to employ thulium atoms captured in an optical lattice as an optical frequency reference.

DOI
10.1070/qe2014v044n06abeh015392

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Secondary laser cooling has been realised on the weak dipole transition 4f13(2Fo)6s2, J = 7/2, F=4 → 4f12(3H6) 5d5/26s2, J' = 9/2, F' = 5 with the wavelength of 530.7 nm and natural width of 350 kHz. The temperature of the atomic cloud in a magnetooptical trap (MOT) was 30 μK at the lifetime of 2 s and the number of atoms 105. Approximately 1% of atoms from the MOT have been reloaded to an optical dipole trap and to one-dimensional optical lattice at the wavelength of 532 nm. The atom lifetime in the optical lattice was 320 ms. We propose to employ thulium atoms captured in an optical lattice as an optical frequency reference.
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.
We demonstrated laser cooling and trapping of thulium atoms at sub-Doppler temperatures in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Up to 3 × 10 6 thulium atoms were trapped in the MOT at temperatures down to 25(5) μK which is approximately 10 times lower than the Doppler limit. The lifetime of atoms in the MOT varied between 0.3–1.5 s and was restricted mostly by optical leaks from the upper cooling level. The lower limit for the leaking rate was estimated to be 22(6) s −1 . Due to a big magnetic moment of Tm atoms, a part of them were trapped in a magnetic trap from the quadrupole field of the MOT. We observed about 3 × 10 4 purely magnetically trapped atoms at temperature of 25 μK with a lifetime in the trap of 0.5 s. Also we set up a “dark” MOT consisting of six crossed hollow beams which increased the number of trapped atoms by a factor of 5 leading to 1.5 × 10 7 atoms at the expense of higher temperature.
Deep laser cooling of atoms, ions, and molecules facilitates the study of fundamental physics as well as applied research. In this work, we report on the narrow-line laser cooling of thulium atoms at the wavelength of 506.2nm with the natural linewidth of 7.8kHz, which widens the limits of atomic cloud parameters control. Temperatures of about 400nK, phase-space density of up to 3.5×10−4 and 2×106 number of trapped atoms were achieved. We have also demonstrated formation of double cloud structure in an optical lattice by adjusting parameters of the 506.2nm magneto-optical trap. These results can be used to improve experiments with BEC, atomic interferometers, and optical clocks.
Sub-Doppler laser cooling in a magneto-optical trap for thulium atoms at a wavelength of 410.6 nm has been experimentally studied. Without any dedicated molasses period of sub-Doppler cooling, the cloud of 3 × 106 atoms at a temperature of 25(5) μK was observed. The measured temperature is significantly lower than the Doppler limit of 240 μK for the cooling transition at 410.6 nm. The high efficiency of the sub-Doppler cooling process is due to a near-degeneracy of the Landé g-factors of the lower 4f 136s 2 (J = 7/2) and the upper 4f 125d 3/26s 2 (J = 9/2) cooling levels.
The secondary laser cooling of a cloud of strontium-88 atoms on the 1 S 0–3 P 1 (689 nm) intercombination transition captured into a magneto-optical trap has been demonstrated. We describe in detail the recapture of atoms from the primary trap operating on the strong 1 S 0–1 P 1 (461 nm) transition and determine the recapture coefficient κ, the number of atoms, and their temperature in the secondary trap as a function of experimental parameters. A temperature of 2 µK has been reached in the secondary trap at the recapture coefficient κ = 6%, which confirms the secondary cooling efficiency and is sufficient to perform metrological measurements of the 1 S 0–3 P 1 (698 nm) clock transition in an optical lattice.
The efficient capture of thulium atoms from an atomic beam into a magneto-optical trap at the spectrally narrow 530-nm transition with a natural linewidth of 350 kHz, avoiding the primary cooling stage that is standard in many experiments, has been demonstrated. To optimize the capture parameters, a machine learning method with automated control of the experimental setup and feedback has been used, which has made it possible to achieve more than 75% capture efficiency compared to the previously used configuration. In addition, the number of atoms has been measured using 530-nm probe radiation with the ability to achieve signal-to-noise levels comparable to those obtained with fluorescence detection on the strong 410-nm transition. This significantly reduces the requirements for the 410-nm laser system, which was previously used for primary cooling and detection of atoms, simplifying the experimental setup and paving the way toward transportable thulium optical clocks.