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Physical Review Letters

Optical Detection of Nonradiating Alkali Atoms in Solid Helium

T. Eichler, R. Müller-Siebert, Daniel Nettels, S. I. Kanorsky, Antoine Weis

Published Mar 7, 2002• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have detected by optical means nonfluorescing ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ and ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms implanted in a body centered cubic ${}^{4}\mathrm{He}$ crystal. In contrast to cesium the resonance fluorescence of rubidium is strongly quenched by the helium matrix, and the weak resonance absorption of the two Rb isotopes was detected using a double resonance technique. From a comparative study of the (optically detected) magnetic resonance spectra of ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$, ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$, and ${}^{133}\mathrm{Cs}$ we infer their effective ${g}_{F}$ factors and conclude that they are not perturbed by the He matrix at a level of $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. We show further that optical pumping of Rb proceeds via depopulation, whereas for Cs it proceeds via repopulation.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.88.123002

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By D1{\mathit{D}}_{1}D1​-line optical pumping of alkali-metal atoms (Cs and Rb) in superfluid helium (He II), we could achieve large spin polarization of the atoms in the ground states, more than 50% for both electron and nuclear spins, especially for the Cs atoms. The alkali-metal atoms were implanted into He II by laser sputtering. We detected optically the magnetic resonances between the ground-state Zeeman sublevels, and found that the g values and hyperfine constants in He II were the same as in vacuum within the experimental error. We discuss possible applications of these spin-polarized atoms in He II.
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We have studied both theoretically and experimentally the optical pumping of Cs atoms trapped in (body-centered-cubic and hexagonal-close-packed) crystalline 4He{}^{4}\mathrm{He}4He matrices. The theoretical approach is based on rate equations for which time-dependent and asymptotic solutions are obtained in the case of depopulation and repopulation pumping. Comparison with experiments show that repopulation pumping, i.e., a process in which spin polarization in the excited state is not destroyed, is the dominant pumping mechanism in both crystalline phases.
It has been demonstrated that optical pumping of alkali atoms (rubidium and cesium) results to a highly efficient indirect optical orientation of metastable He (2 3 S 1 ) atoms. However, in an attempt to perform the inverse experiment (i.e. to receive spin-polarization of alkali atoms upon optical pumping of metastable helium atoms) the result was quite unexpected: the magnetic resonance signal of Cs or Rb atoms was very weak (several hundred times weaker compared to conventional optical pumping of helium in the presence of cesium (rubidium)). We propose an explanation for the unusually small ratio of the magnetic resonance signals from Cs (Rb) and metastable He atoms under condition of optical orientation of He atoms. Except of Cs atoms we are the first to have observed magnetic resonance signals from atoms of 85 Rb and 87 Rb isotopes when using the indirect optical orientation in conditions of helium-rubidium gas discharge plasma. It is shown that the anomaly in the amplitude ratios of the observed MR signals can be explained by the unidirectional action of three different factors (the presence of a large nuclear spin of alkali atoms, depolarization of alkali atoms between collisions, and spin exchange between atoms of rubidium isotopes (for the He-Rb system).
We have experimentally detected a signal of magnetic resonance (MR) from 85Rb atoms in the 52 S 1/2 state by measuring the absorption of light from a helium lamp producing optical orientation of metastable 23 S 1 4He atoms in a cell containing alkali metal vapor and gaseous helium at a pressure of 1 Torr. The ratio of MR signal amplitudes in Rb and He atoms did not exceed 10–2. Peculiarities of the formation and observation of the collisional polarization of Rb atoms in alkali–helium plasma are discussed.
Alkali metals have played an important role in optical and atomic physics from the very beginning. This thesis deals with three aspects and applications of alkali-metal atoms, in particular rubidium (Rb). Optical pumping changes both the amplitudes and the center positions of the absorption profiles in the Doppler-broadened D-line spectra of the alkali-metal atoms. This effect has been studied by reducing the multilevel system to an effective three-level system and by treating the finite interaction time and collisions with the vapor-cell walls in two different ways: as ground-state relaxation and by averaging the time-dependent absorption over the distribution of interaction times. The former is a computationally efficient way to compare theoretical spectra to experimental results, and the latter reveals lineshape details that are due to the coupling between the Doppler shift and the interaction times through the longitudinal velocity of the atoms. Using coherent population trapping (CPT) in 85Rb, an all-optical atomic clock has been realized. The good noise properties of the diode laser, an optimized buffer gas, and a very low light intensity allow detection of ultranarrow CPT resonances < 20 Hz, apparently the narrowest optically induced hyperfine CPT resonance ever measured. The Q value of this resonance, 1.5 × 108, is comparable to Q values in cesium clocks and the stability of the CPT clock is sufficient for many high-precision applications. Trapping of Rb atoms in microscopic magneto-optical traps (MOTs) a few hundred micrometers from the surface of an optically transparent ferrite-garnet permanent-magnet atom chip has been demonstrated. The required magnetic fields are created by magnetic patterns magneto-optically written into the ferrite-garnet film and the transparency of the chip allows using a conventional MOT geometry. The magnetic patterns can be erased and re-written in situ, even during the experiments. Magnetic traps with a trap depth up to 1 mK could be realized using this type of atom chip.