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Physical Review Letters

Lifetime Measurement of the Metastable 4dD3/22 Level in Sr+ by Optical Pumping of a Stored Ion Beam

S. Mannervik, Johan Lidberg, L.‐O. Norlin, Peder Royen, Annette Schmitt, Wei Shi, Xavier Tordoir

Published Jul 26, 1999• 32 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical pumping has been applied to a stored ion beam of singly charged strontium. Collinear laser excitation in the storage ring transferred the main part of the ion beam into the metastable $4d^{2}D_{3/2}$ level. Subsequent observation of the forbidden electric quadrupole transition to the ground state yielded information about the radiative lifetime of the metastable state. With this new method a lifetime of $435\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}4\mathrm{ms}$ was obtained. The metastable $4d^{2}D$ levels are presently focused on as candidates for a new frequency standard.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.83.698

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Optical pumping has been applied to a stored ion beam of singly charged strontium. Collinear laser excitation in the storage ring transferred the main part of the ion beam into the metastable 4d2D3/24d^{2}D_{3/2}4d2D3/2​ level. Subsequent observation of the forbidden electric quadrupole transition to the ground state yielded information about the radiative lifetime of the metastable state. With this new method a lifetime of 435\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi4ms435\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}4\mathrm{ms}435\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi4ms was obtained. The metastable 4d2D4d^{2}D4d2D levels are presently focused on as candidates for a new frequency standard.
A single Sr+ atom was confined in a radio-frequency quadrupole trap and laser cooled with resonant laser light. Examination of the transition Doppler profile indicated an ion kinetic temperature of less than 500 mK. Quantum jumps into and out of the metastable 4d(2)D(5/2) level were observed by laser excitation on the electric-quadrupole-allowed transition from the ground state at 674 nm. The dark and bright periods in the strong fluorescence showed variations owing to the applied driving field on the electric-quadrupole transition. These results provide an improved determination of tau = 372 +/- 25 msec for the natural metastable-state lifetime.
The quadrupole moment of the 4d (2)D(5/2) level in 88Sr+ has been measured to be 2.6(3)ea(2)(0), where a(0) is the Bohr radius and e the elementary charge. A single laser-cooled strontium ion was confined in an end cap trap with a variable dc quadrupole potential, and measurements were made on the 5s (2)S(1/2)-4d (2)D(5/2) transition at 674 nm using a femtosecond optical frequency comb. This work shows that measurements of the unperturbed 88Sr+ transition frequency with sub-Hz uncertainty are possible and is important in understanding the reproducibility of ion trap optical frequency standards.
A laser-induced fluorescence technique combined with the observation of spontane ous magnetic dipole photons from the highly metastable 2 3 S t state of Li + has been used to measure the radiative lifetime of this state.The ions are created by electron impact on a lithium A. Direct Determination of the Spontaneous Decay Curve .... 18 B. Direct Determination of the Number of Remaining Metastables 20 C. Indirect Determination of the Radiative Lifetime 23 IV.Ion Trap Theory and Performance 29 A. The RF-Quadrupole Ion Trap 29 B. The Ion Detection System 36 C. Ion Trap Performance 43 1.Ion storage 43 2. Ion distribution 50 V.Experimental Methods 56 A. The Vacuum System 56 B. The Lithium Oven and Hot Wire Detector 60 C. The Ion Trap and Electron Gun 62 D. The Magnetic Field 66 1. Detector operation ..... 73 2. Detector calibration 76 6.The Laser and Optical System 81 H.The Computer System 84 1. Timing and control .84 2. Operating and analysis programs 88 VI.Experimental Results 93 A. The Detection of Spontaneous Ml Photons 93 B. The Detection of Laser-Induced Photons 96 C. The Metastable Lifetime and Nonradiative Quenching .... 99 D. Procedures in Measuring the Radiative Lifetime 104 E. Data Reduction and Error Analysis Ill VII.Conclusion 119 Appendix A. Optical Pumping Calculations .121 A. The Magic Angle 121 B. The Optical Pumping Equations 123 C. Results of the Calculations .126 Appendix B. Measurements of the Ion Density Distribution 128 A. The Laser Scanning Technique 128 B. Experimental Results 130 Acknowledgements ....
The natural lifetime of the metastable 4d2D5∕24d\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}D_{5∕2}4d2D5∕2​ state in 88Sr+^{88}\mathrm{Sr}^{+}88Sr+ has been measured using a single laser-cooled, trapped ion. The ion was prepared in the 4d2D5∕24d\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}D_{5∕2}4d2D5∕2​ state by laser excitation of the $5s\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}S_{1∕2}\ensuremath{-}4d\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}D_{5∕2}$ quadrupole transition at 674 nm. The decay time was measured by using Dehmelt's electron shelving method to monitor the ion's electronic state. Two separate investigations were conducted under slightly different experimental conditions. 160 000 decay times from the 4d2D5∕24d\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}D_{5∕2}4d2D5∕2​ state were observed in total, and two different methods for determining the statistical value of the measured lifetime have been compared. Systematic effects have also been estimated, and including these effects yields a value of $\ensuremath{\tau}=390.8(1.6)\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ms}$ ($1\ensuremath{\sigma}$ uncertainty) for the natural lifetime.
A hyperfine state selective laser probing technique is presented to be used for lifetime determination of metastable states in an ion storage ring. Evidence for a drastic difference between the decay rates of the hyperfine states of the metastable level 5d4D7/25d{}^{4}{D}_{7/2}5d4D7/2​ in 129Xe+{}^{129}{\mathrm{Xe}}^{+}129Xe+ has been obtained by this method.