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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Experimental study of Au atom Rydberg states

G. Ding, R. C. Shang, Lan Fen Chang, K. L. Wen, Q Hui, D Y Chen

Published May 28, 1989• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A beam of gold atoms was produced by heating the gold-containing material by an electro-thermal method. Two UV laser beams then irradiated the atomic beam perpendicularly, which excited the Au atoms to very high Rydberg states from their ground states (6S1/2). A high voltage pulsed electric field was then applied to the interaction region approximately 200 ns after the laser pulse, ionising the Au atoms in Rydberg states. By scanning the wavelength of the laser over a certain range, the positions of 38 energy levels of Au atoms in the n 2D3/2 (n=18-38) and n 2S1/2 (n=21-34, 36-38) series have been measured. The ionisation limits of the n 2D3/2 and n 2S1/2 series were determined by parametric fitting to be Ed=74 409.8 (3) cm-1 and Es=74 410.0 (2) cm-1, respectively. The quantum defects of all these levels were also calculated. This measurement is the first for Au in the energy range and channels mentioned above.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/22/10/011

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A beam of gold atoms was produced by heating the gold-containing material by an electro-thermal method. Two UV laser beams then irradiated the atomic beam perpendicularly, which excited the Au atoms to very high Rydberg states from their ground states (6S1/2). A high voltage pulsed electric field was then applied to the interaction region approximately 200 ns after the laser pulse, ionising the Au atoms in Rydberg states. By scanning the wavelength of the laser over a certain range, the positions of 38 energy levels of Au atoms in the n 2D3/2 (n=18-38) and n 2S1/2 (n=21-34, 36-38) series have been measured. The ionisation limits of the n 2D3/2 and n 2S1/2 series were determined by parametric fitting to be Ed=74 409.8 (3) cm-1 and Es=74 410.0 (2) cm-1, respectively. The quantum defects of all these levels were also calculated. This measurement is the first for Au in the energy range and channels mentioned above.
A beam of gold atoms was produced by heating the gold containing material by electrothermal method. Two UV laser beams then orthogonally irradiated the atomic beam, exciting the Au atoms to very high Rydberg states from their ground states (6S1/2). A high voltage pulsed electric field was applied to the interaction region approximately 200 ns after the laser pulse, it ionized the Au atoms into Rydberg states. By scanning the wavelength of laser in a certain range, the positions of 38 energy levels of Au atoms in n2D3/2 (n = 18-38) and n2S1/2 (n = 21-34; 36-38) series have been determined. the ionization limits of the n2D3/2 and n2S1/2 series were found to be ED = 74409.8 (3)cm-1 and Es = 74410.0(2) cm-1, respectively, by parametric fitting. The quantum defects of all these levels were also calculated.
The authors have studied phenomena related to the ionisation of indium Rydberg atoms by an external electric field. The indium atoms are excited in an atomic beam apparatus by pulsed dye laser light. The high-lying states are populated in one step from the ground state by an ultraviolet, frequency-doubled dye laser or by stepwise excitation using two dye lasers in the visible region. Shortly after the excitation, an electric field is applied in the interaction region which causes ionisation of the highly excited atoms. The authors have investigated (i) the lowest adiabatic ionisation threshold over a wide range of n values and compared the results with model predictions, (ii) the structure in the adiabatic part of the ionisation spectrum, and (iii) the transition from adiabatic to diabatic ionisation as a function of the slew rate of the ionising field pulse and the quantum defect and quantum numbers of the atomic state concerned. The ionisation signal is demonstrated to shift considerably towards higher field strengths with increasing slew rate. A qualitative explanation is presented and consequences for the detection efficiency are mentioned. Differences in the field ionisation behaviour between nearly degenerate excited states are demonstrated and exploited to achieve selective detection of fine-structure and even hyperfine-structure states.
Helium atoms travelling in pulsed supersonic beams have been photoexcited from the metastable 1s2s 3 S 1 level to Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers exceeding 400 by resonance-enhanced two-colour two-photon excitation using narrow-bandwidth CW laser radiation. To achieve this, the photoexcitation region was shielded and stray electric fields cancelled using a cubic arrangement of 80 mm × 80 mm copper plates. The excited Rydberg atoms were detected by pulsed electric field ionisation downstream from this photoexcitation region. Comparison of the experimental spectra with the results of calculations indicate that the stray electric fields at the position of Rydberg state photoexcitation were reduced to as low as 160 μ V cm –1 . Using helium in these experiments minimises temporal changes in the stray fields resulting from surface adsorption. Measurements performed 70 h apart indicate that the rate of change of these fields was on the order of 2 μ V cm –1 per h, making beams of metastable helium atoms ideally suited as probes for high precision electrometry in spectroscopy experiments involving less readily available species such as positronium or antihydrogen.
The production of very-high-nnn ($n\ensuremath{\sim}300$--500) strontium Rydberg atoms is explored using a crossed-laser-atom-beam geometry. nnn1S0{}^{1}{S}_{0}1S0​ and nnn1D2{}^{1}{D}_{2}1D2​ states are created by two-photon excitation via the 5s5p5s5p5s5p 1P1{}^{1}{P}_{1}1P1​ intermediate state using radiation with wavelengths of $\ensuremath{\sim}$461 and $\ensuremath{\sim}$413 nm. Rydberg atom densities as high as $\ensuremath{\sim}3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ cm${}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ have been achieved, sufficient that Rydberg-Rydberg interactions can become important. The isotope shifts in the Rydberg series limits are determined by tuning the 461-nm light to preferentially excite the different strontium isotopes. Photoexcitation in the presence of an applied electric field is examined. The initially quadratic Stark shift of the nnn1P1{}^{1}{P}_{1}1P1​ and nnn1D2{}^{1}{D}_{2}1D2​ states becomes near-linear at higher fields and the possible use of n1D2n{}^{1}{D}_{2}n1D2​ states to create strongly polarized, quasi-one-dimensional electronic states in strontium is discussed. The data are analyzed with the aid of a two-active-electron (TAE) approximation. The two-electron Hamiltonian, within which the Sr2+{}^{2+}2+ core is represented by a semi-empirical potential, is numerically diagonalized allowing the calculation of the energies of high-nnn Rydberg states and their photoexcitation probabilities.
Perturbed Rydberg series One of the most intensively studied manifestations of channel interaction in the bound states is the perturbation of the regularity of the Rydberg series, which is evident if one simply measures the energies of the atomic states. Although measurements of Rydberg energy levels by classical absorption spectroscopy show the perturbations in the series which are optically accessible from the ground state, the tunable laser has made it possible to study series which are not connected to the ground state by electric dipole transitions as well. One of the approaches which has been used widely is that used by Armstrong et al . As shown in Fig. 22.1, a heat pipe oven contains Ba vapor at a pressure of ∼1 Torr. Three pulsed tunable dye laser beams pass through the oven. Two are fixed in frequency, to excite the Ba atoms from the ground 6s 2 1 S o state to the 3 P 1 state and then to the 6s7s 3 S 1 state. The third laser is scanned in frequency over the 6s7s 3 S 1 → 6s n p transitions. The Ba atoms excited to the 6s n p states are ionized either by collisional ionization or by the absorption of another photon. The ions produced migrate towards a negatively biased electrode inside the heat pipe. The electrode has a space charge cloud of electrons near it which limits the emission current.
We have excited helium atoms from their metastable 2 3S{}^{3}\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}S3S state to Rydberg states in the range 13<n<5013<n<5013<n<50 in a two-step process via the 3 3P{}^{3}\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}P3P state using light at $\ensuremath{\lambda}=389$ nm and 785--815 nm. Atoms in a thermal beam (100 K) cross partially overlapping laser beams of the appropriate frequencies in the counterintuitive order to exploit the high efficiency of stimulated rapid adiabatic passage. The interaction region is between two plates that can be used for Stark tuning in a few V/cm field or for field ionization. At fields much too low for field ionization, we observe signals attributed to ionization by blackbody radiation. Multiple tests confirm this attribution as the cause of ionization. For example, by heating the plates we observe the expected signal increases. Our experiments reinforce previous work where the interaction between Rydberg atoms and room temperature blackbody radiation is important for experiments.