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Japanese Journal of Applied Physics

Laser Cooling of Ca+ with an External-Cavity Ultraviolet Diode Laser

Kazuhiro Hayasaka, Shinji Urabe, Masayoshi Watanabe

Published Jul 1, 2000• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have built an external-cavity ultraviolet diode laser at 397 nm for Ca+ spectroscopy. The laser consists of a commercial ultraviolet diode laser and a holographic grating in the Littrow configuration. Stable single-mode operation with a power of 3 mW, a linewidth no larger than 2 MHz, and a mode-hop-free frequency scanning range of 15 GHz was achieved. This laser was used to cool a small number of Ca+ in a rf trap. The ions were cooled to a low temperature to form a crystallized state. The use of the laser will simplify experimental setups for diverse applications of Ca+, such as frequency standards, quantum computers and one-atom lasers.

DOI
10.1143/jjap.39.l687

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We have built an external-cavity ultraviolet diode laser at 397 nm for Ca+ spectroscopy. The laser consists of a commercial ultraviolet diode laser and a holographic grating in the Littrow configuration. Stable single-mode operation with a power of 3 mW, a linewidth no larger than 2 MHz, and a mode-hop-free frequency scanning range of 15 GHz was achieved. This laser was used to cool a small number of Ca+ in a rf trap. The ions were cooled to a low temperature to form a crystallized state. The use of the laser will simplify experimental setups for diverse applications of Ca+, such as frequency standards, quantum computers and one-atom lasers.
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We have fabricated an rf ion trap and laser-cooling light sources to observe shelving transition in a single calcium ion. All the radiation required for laser cooling and observation of the transition can be prepared with diode lasers in this system. Continuous-wave radiation at 397 nm for laser cooling was generated by frequency doubling of a GaAlAs laser in an external enhancement cavity. As a preliminary experiment for observing the shelving transition, laser cooling of one hundred calcium ions was demonstrated using this radiation and another diode laser.
We develop a high-performance ultraviolet (UV) frequency stabilization technique implemented directly on UV diode lasers by combining the dichroic atomic vapor laser lock and the resonant transfer cavity lock. As an example, we demonstrate a stable locking with measured frequency standard deviations of approximately 200 kHz and 300 kHz for 399 nm and 370 nm diode lasers in 20 min. We achieve a long-term frequency drift of no more than 1 MHz for the target 370 nm laser within an hour, which is further verified with fluorescence count rates of a single trapped 171Yb+ ion. We also find strong linear correlations between lock points and environmental factors such as temperature and atmospheric pressure. Our approach provides a simple and stable solution at a relatively low cost, and features flexible control, high feedback bandwidth and minimal power consumption of the target UV laser.
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