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Frontiers in Optics

Efficient Rydberg Excitation of He with STIRAP*

S-H. Lee, Andreas Vernaleken, Kyung Soo Choi, J. Kaufman, Oleg Kritsun, H. Metcalf

Published Jan 1, 2006• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The ∼100% efficiency of STIRAP is used to produce Rydberg He atoms in a slightly supersonic beam. We focus the atoms with a hexapole electrostatic lens and calibrate the Rabi frequency with the Autler-Townes effect.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2006.jwd122

Related papers

Absolute Efficiency for STIRAP Excitation of Rydberg States

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We have set up a STIRAP excitation mechanism for helium from the metastable 23S state into Rydberg states, via the intermediate level 33P . A uv laser at 389 nm and an ir laser at 780-815nm are used as the pump and Stokes beams respectively. Our purposes is to examine how well STIRAP works to efficiently produce the Rydberg atoms, and also to apply STIRAP for further coherent manipulations of helium. To examine the efficiency of the STIRAP process, we use the state selectivity of the light force on atoms to physically separate atoms with different internal states. We use the bichromatic force on a transition different from those used for Rydberg excitation. We do not measure an excitation efficiency close to the ~100% theoretical optimum but instead only about 50%. To gain more insight into this coherent process, an excitation path interferometer is envisioned that showes the expected interference, via the final population of the Rydberg level.

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•Dec 1, 2011•0 citations

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We investigate the coherent population transfer and associated effects for a three level atomic system, with the third level being a Rydberg state. The scheme adopted here is the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). An atomic beam of metastable helium is orthogonally crossing two laser beams in a tunable dc electric field. The ir laser of 790 - 830 nm connects the triplet 3P state to the Rydberg states (n = 12 - 50) and the uv laser of 389 nm connects the metastable triplet 2S state to the triplet 3P state. A third laser of 1083 nm driving 2S-2P transition is applied downstream, providing a strong bichromatic force on the atoms remaining in the 2S state to deflect them, establishing the absolute count of Rydberg atoms. Rydberg atoms can be ionized by background thermal radiations at room temperature and it is observed in this experiment. This fact actually enables precise measurement, especially spectroscopy, of Rydberg atoms by simply looking at the ions, which are easy to detect. It is also confirmed that background thermal radiation could significantly redistribute the population between neighboring Rydberg states. The 2S, 3P and the final Rydberg states all have magnetic sub-levels, hence the linkage pattern of the excitation has non-trivial crossings, if the polarizations of the two lasers are not parallel to each other. Those phase differences in different excitation paths induced by the laser polarizations can lead to interference which would determine the excitation probability and the polarization of the excited atom. Theoretical calculations predict interesting interference patterns as a function of laser polarizations and Rabi frequencies. Those interference structures have been experimentally observed. Transverse velocity distribution in the atomic beam turns out to be a limiting factor in the efficiency of production of Rydberg atoms. The transverse velocity of an atom can not only induce one-photon detuning but also two-photon detuning, which could effectively reduce the STIRAP process efficiency. By adding a laser to make Doppler molasses in the transverse direction, we can heat or cool the atomic beam transversely and verify this effect. | 190 pages

•Dec 1, 2013•0 citations

Resonant Rydberg-atom–microwave-field interactions in the ultrastrong-driving regime: Beyond the rotating-wave approximation

J. D. R. Tommey, S. D. Hogan

The coherent interaction of Rydberg atoms with microwave fields in the ultrastrong-driving regime, in which the Rabi frequency is of the same order of magnitude as the transition frequency, has been studied for states with principal quantum number $n=105$ in helium. Experiments were performed in pulsed supersonic beams, and the effects of the ultrastrong 1.280 GHz microwave driving field, tuned to near resonance with the $1s105s\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}S_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1s105p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}P$ transition, were identified from Autler-Townes splittings of the $1s3p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}P_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1s105s\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}S_{1}$ transition by cw laser spectroscopy. The microwave field strength was calibrated in situ in the apparatus from Autler-Townes splittings measured in the weak-driving regime in which the rotating-wave approximation holds. The results of the experiments were compared to the energy-level structure of the atoms in the presence of the microwave field calculated using Floquet methods. From this comparison, the microwave-field strengths for which the rotating-wave approximation and the two-level approximation break down have been identified. The feasibility of implementing microwave traps for Rydberg atoms and molecules, which operate in the ultrastrong-driving regime, has been evaluated.

Physical Review A•Nov 25, 2019•4 citations
We have set up a STIRAP excitation mechanism for helium from the metastable 23S state into Rydberg states, via the intermediate level 33P . A uv laser at 389 nm and an ir laser at 780-815nm are used as the pump and Stokes beams respectively. Our purposes is to examine how well STIRAP works to efficiently produce the Rydberg atoms, and also to apply STIRAP for further coherent manipulations of helium. To examine the efficiency of the STIRAP process, we use the state selectivity of the light force on atoms to physically separate atoms with different internal states. We use the bichromatic force on a transition different from those used for Rydberg excitation. We do not measure an excitation efficiency close to the ~100% theoretical optimum but instead only about 50%. To gain more insight into this coherent process, an excitation path interferometer is envisioned that showes the expected interference, via the final population of the Rydberg level.
Driving atoms from an initial to a final state of the same parity via an intermediate state of opposite parity is most efficiently done using STIRAP, because it does not populate the intermediate state. For optical transitions this requires appropriate pulses of light in the counter-intuitive order - first coupling the intermediate and final states. We populate Rydberg states of helium (n = 12 ~ 30) in a beam of average velocity 1070 m/s by having the atoms cross two laser beams in a tunable dc electric field. The &ldquo red &rdquo light near &lambda = 790 ~ 830 nm connects the 33P states to the Rydberg states and the &ldquo blue &rdquo beam of &lambda = 389 nm connects the metastable 23S state atoms emitted by our source to the 33P states. By varying the relative position of these beams we can vary both the order and the overlap encountered by the atoms. We vary either the dc electric field and fix the &ldquo red &rdquo laser frequency or vary the &ldquo red &rdquo laser frequency and fix the dc electric field to sweep across Stark states of the Rydberg manifolds. Several mm downstream of the interaction region we apply the very strong bichromatic force on the 23S &rarr 23P transition at &lambda = 1083 nm. It deflects the remaining 23S atoms out of the beam and the ratio of this signal measured with STIRAP beam on and off provides an absolute measure of the fraction of the atoms remaining in the 23S state. Simple three-level models of STIRAP all predict 100% excitation probability, but our raw measurements are typically around half of this, and vary with both n and l of the Rydberg states selected for excitation by the laser frequency and electric field tuning on our Stark maps. For states with high enough Rabi frequency, after correction for the decay back to the metastable state before the deflection, the highest efficiencies are around 70%. An ion detector readily detects the presence of Rydberg atoms. We believe that the observed signals are produced by black-body ionization at a very low rate, but sufficient to ionize about 0.5 ~ 1.0 % of the atoms in a region viewed by our detector. Many measurements provide support for this hypothesis.
We describe experiments relevant to Rydberg atom-based sensing. In Rydberg atom-based sensing, atoms contained in a vapor cell are used as a probe of an incident radio frequency electric field. We present a novel approach based on a collinear three-photon read-out and detection scheme, which extends the sensing range of the self-calibrated Autler-Townes sensing mode to lower electric field strengths. We demonstrate proof of concept and present concrete results from first experiments. We show that we are able to measure electric field strengths below 1 mV/cm in the self-calibrated Autler-Townes regime for a radial dipole moment of 2206 ea0for a transition at 10.7 GHz. We measure an Autler-Townes splitting of 503(6) kHz, which is equivalent to a radio frequency electric field strength of micro-V/cm.
We investigate the coherent population transfer and associated effects for a three level atomic system, with the third level being a Rydberg state. The scheme adopted here is the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). An atomic beam of metastable helium is orthogonally crossing two laser beams in a tunable dc electric field. The ir laser of 790 - 830 nm connects the triplet 3P state to the Rydberg states (n = 12 - 50) and the uv laser of 389 nm connects the metastable triplet 2S state to the triplet 3P state. A third laser of 1083 nm driving 2S-2P transition is applied downstream, providing a strong bichromatic force on the atoms remaining in the 2S state to deflect them, establishing the absolute count of Rydberg atoms. Rydberg atoms can be ionized by background thermal radiations at room temperature and it is observed in this experiment. This fact actually enables precise measurement, especially spectroscopy, of Rydberg atoms by simply looking at the ions, which are easy to detect. It is also confirmed that background thermal radiation could significantly redistribute the population between neighboring Rydberg states. The 2S, 3P and the final Rydberg states all have magnetic sub-levels, hence the linkage pattern of the excitation has non-trivial crossings, if the polarizations of the two lasers are not parallel to each other. Those phase differences in different excitation paths induced by the laser polarizations can lead to interference which would determine the excitation probability and the polarization of the excited atom. Theoretical calculations predict interesting interference patterns as a function of laser polarizations and Rabi frequencies. Those interference structures have been experimentally observed. Transverse velocity distribution in the atomic beam turns out to be a limiting factor in the efficiency of production of Rydberg atoms. The transverse velocity of an atom can not only induce one-photon detuning but also two-photon detuning, which could effectively reduce the STIRAP process efficiency. By adding a laser to make Doppler molasses in the transverse direction, we can heat or cool the atomic beam transversely and verify this effect. | 190 pages
The coherent interaction of Rydberg atoms with microwave fields in the ultrastrong-driving regime, in which the Rabi frequency is of the same order of magnitude as the transition frequency, has been studied for states with principal quantum number n=105n=105n=105 in helium. Experiments were performed in pulsed supersonic beams, and the effects of the ultrastrong 1.280 GHz microwave driving field, tuned to near resonance with the $1s105s\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}S_{1}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1s105p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}P$ transition, were identified from Autler-Townes splittings of the $1s3p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}P_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1s105s\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}^{3}S_{1}$ transition by cw laser spectroscopy. The microwave field strength was calibrated in situ in the apparatus from Autler-Townes splittings measured in the weak-driving regime in which the rotating-wave approximation holds. The results of the experiments were compared to the energy-level structure of the atoms in the presence of the microwave field calculated using Floquet methods. From this comparison, the microwave-field strengths for which the rotating-wave approximation and the two-level approximation break down have been identified. The feasibility of implementing microwave traps for Rydberg atoms and molecules, which operate in the ultrastrong-driving regime, has been evaluated.