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Physical Review A

Probing the fields in an ultracold plasma by microwave spectroscopy

Hyunwook Park, Raheel Ali, Thomas F. Gallagher

Published Aug 26, 2010• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

By observing the Stark shift of the Rb $42{s}_{1/2}\ensuremath{-}42{p}_{1/2}$ microwave transition we have measured the electric fields in an ultracold plasma formed by photoionizing Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap. Using this approach and a model of the electron charge distribution we have been able to measure both the microscopic fields due to nearest-neighbor ions and the macroscopic fields due to the charge imbalance in the plasma.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.023421

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By observing the Stark shift of the Rb 42s1/2\ensuremath−42p1/242{s}_{1/2}\ensuremath{-}42{p}_{1/2}42s1/2​\ensuremath−42p1/2​ microwave transition we have measured the electric fields in an ultracold plasma formed by photoionizing Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap. Using this approach and a model of the electron charge distribution we have been able to measure both the microscopic fields due to nearest-neighbor ions and the macroscopic fields due to the charge imbalance in the plasma.
We created an ultracold plasma by photoionizing the laser-cooled and trapped rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap. In the externally applied direct current (DC) electric field environment, the electrons which escape from the potential well of the ultracold plasma were detected for different numbers of the ions and initial kinetic energies of the electrons. The results are in good agreement with the calculations, based on the Coulomb potential well model, indicating that the external DC field is an effective tool to adjust the depth of potential well of the plasma, and it is possible to create an ultracold plasma in a controlled manner.
In this paper, we report electronic temperature measurement in a Rb ultracold plasma formed in a magneto-optical trap. We used the ion evaporation rate and the model presented by Comparat et al. [Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 361 , 1227 (2005)] to extract the electronic temperature in the plasma as a function of the energy difference between the laser photon and the ionization threshold. The obtained results are similar to those obtained in Cs; however, they do not seem to show any saturation. Comparison with other models may lead to improvements in the experiments and the theoretical models.
We present threshold ion number measurement in the formation of an ultracold plasma in a rubidium magneto-optical trap using the photoionization of laser-cooled atoms technique. The density and temperature of the trapped atoms in the magneto-optical trap were about 1010 cm-3 and 500 μK, respectively. The measured value of the lifetime of the ultracold plasma was exactly matched with the calculated value. The threshold ion number in the formation of ultracold plasma was obtained from the linear relationship between ion and electron numbers for different laser energies. The dependence of the threshold ion number on the depth of the potential well was investigated experimentally. The experimental results were explained by the Coulomb potential well model.
We determine the electric field in mm-sized clouds of cold Rb+\mathrm{R}{\mathrm{b}}^{\mathrm{+}}Rb+ ions, produced by photoionization of laser-cooled 87Rb^{\mathrm{87}}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}87Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap, using the Stark effect of embedded Rydberg atoms. The dependence of the electric field on the time delay between the ion plasma production and the probe of the electric field reflects the Coulomb expansion of the plasma. Our experiments and models show expansion times $<1\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$.
Measurements of plasma electric fields are essential to the advancement of plasma science and applications. Methods for non-invasive in situ measurements of plasma fields on sub-millimeter length scales with high sensitivity over a large field range remain an outstanding challenge. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a new method for plasma electric field measurement that employs electromagnetically induced transparency as a high-resolution quantum-optical probe for the Stark energy level shifts of plasma-embedded Rydberg atoms, which serve as highly-sensitive field sensors with a large dynamic range. The method is applied in diagnostics of plasmas photo-excited out of a cesium vapor. The plasma electric fields are extracted from spatially-resolved measurements of field-induced shape changes and shifts of Rydberg resonances in rubidium tracer atoms. Measurement capabilities over a range of plasma densities and temperatures are exploited to characterize plasmas in applied magnetic fields and to image electric-field distributions in cyclotron-heated plasmas.