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Applied Physics Letters

Enhanced efficiency in separation of Rb isotopes by light-induced drift with the use of a diode laser with relaxation sidebands

Alan D. Streater, Jaap J. Mooibroek, J. P. Woerdman

Published Feb 22, 1988• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An AlGaAs diode laser oscillating in a single Fabry–Perot mode with strong relaxation sidebands is observed to separate the two naturally occurring isotopes of rubidium by means of light-induced drift at much lower powers than has been reported with a single-mode ring dye laser. The sideband frequency displacement is approximately equal to the ground-state hyperfine splitting, so that optical hyperfine pumping is largely eliminated.

DOI
10.1063/1.99377

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Journal of the Optical Society of America B•Oct 31, 2007•10 citations
An AlGaAs diode laser oscillating in a single Fabry–Perot mode with strong relaxation sidebands is observed to separate the two naturally occurring isotopes of rubidium by means of light-induced drift at much lower powers than has been reported with a single-mode ring dye laser. The sideband frequency displacement is approximately equal to the ground-state hyperfine splitting, so that optical hyperfine pumping is largely eliminated.
Recently separation of the two naturally occurring Rb isotopes (28% 87Rb and 72% 85Rb) has been achieved1 using the light-induced drift (LID) effect;2 enrichment up to 95% 87Rb has been observed. In those experiments a high-power (~ 150mW) single-frequency dye laser was used. In the case of single-frequency excitation such power is required since most of the Rb atoms are trapped in the non- resonant hyperfine (hf) ground level due to optical hf pumping.3 Here we demonstrate that the Rb isotopes can be separated equally well using a low-power (3.3 mW) AlGaAs diode laser which has strong relaxation oscillation sidebands. The presence of these sidebands greatly increases LID by eliminating optical hf pumping.
The use of paraffin-coated cells has led to a breakthrough in the experimental study of light-induced drift (LID) of alkalis in noble gases. In recent experiments isotope separation of the two naturally occurring Rb isotopes through the LID effect has been achieved (enrichment of the rare isotope up to 95%), 1,2 and direct measurements of the drift velocity of Na in noble gases as a function of various experimental parameters have been made.3 In these experiments a single single-mode dye laser, tuned within the Doppler profile of the resonance line, was used to excite a specific velocity group of atoms (isotope selective in the case of Rb). Optical pumping between the ground-state hyperfine levels F = I+½ and F=I−½ plays a dominant (limiting) role in determining the magnitude of the LID effects by strongly depleting the resonantly excited hyperfine substate (of a specific isotope).
We demonstrate simultaneous trapping and spatial separation of the two stable rubidium isotopes in a magneto-optical trap. To realize this novel type of isotope separation, we have built a compact diode laser which is frequency-stabilized by optical feedback from a diffraction grating, and frequency-modulated by a direct microwave modulation of the bias current from a yittrium iron garnet tuned oscillator. Use of the single diode laser with microwave sidebands provides much ease and flexibility in the applications of a magneto-optical trap.
The output from two grating-stabilized external-cavity diode lasers were injected into a single-mode diode laser. Operating at a wavelength of 780 nm, this laser produced ~50 mW of power with two main frequency components of the same spectral characteristics of the seed lasers. The power ratio of the amplified components was freely adjustable due to gain saturation, and amplification was observed for frequency differences of the two seed lasers in the range from 73 MHz to 6.6 GHz. This system was used to realize a dual isotope magneto-optic trap (MOT) for rubidium (85Rb and 87Rb). The resulting position and cloud size of the dual isotope MOT was the same as that of the single species MOTs to within "±10 and "±20 μm, respectively. We also characterized the additional spectral components produced by four wave mixing (FWM) in the diode laser amplifier and utilized a particular FWM sideband to realize hyperfine pumping and subsequent laser trapping of 85Rb in the absence of a "repump" laser dedicated to hyperfine pumping.