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Journal de Physique III

Realization and characterization of a beam of titanium atoms

E. M. Azaroual, Paul Luc, Raymond J. Vetter

Published Jun 1, 1992• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A dense thermal beam of titanium atoms has been realized using a tungsten crucible inside a high temperature oven (≤2300 K). Its flux (≈1014 atom/cm2/s) and its long term stability have been measured by means of a quartz balance, its angular divergence has been evaluated from the size of a metallic spot deposited on a glass plate. A spectroscopic investigation performed via the laser-induced fluorescence technique has led to the measurement of the isotope shifts between 46Ti, 48Ti and 50Ti, for six visible 3d2 4s2 a 3FJ↦3d2 4s4p z 5DJ' transitions. This beam offers the characteristics required to apply high resolution laser techniques to reaction dynamics crossed-beam experiments.

DOI
10.1051/jp3:1992167

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Design and characterization of an atomic beam source with narrow angular divergence for alkali-earth targets

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A new atomic beam source for use in laser-based experiments is described and characterized. The physically collimated source which has been tested using calcium, produces an atomic beam with low angular divergence and narrow transverse Doppler profile, as measured using fluorescence techniques with a near resonant laser beam. The low angular divergence of the source is essential for new experiments which study super-elastic scattering of electrons from laser prepared targets within a magnetic field, since the atomic beam must pass through a narrow gap between the coil windings. The beam density for calcium is calculated to be 2.8 × 109 atoms cm-3 when the source is operated at a temperature of 1090 K. This is sufficient to produce good electron energy loss and super-elastic scattering signals, while ensuring negligible radiation trapping within the atomic beam. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Measurement Science and Technology•Oct 19, 2006•16 citations
A dense thermal beam of titanium atoms has been realized using a tungsten crucible inside a high temperature oven (≤2300 K). Its flux (≈1014 atom/cm2/s) and its long term stability have been measured by means of a quartz balance, its angular divergence has been evaluated from the size of a metallic spot deposited on a glass plate. A spectroscopic investigation performed via the laser-induced fluorescence technique has led to the measurement of the isotope shifts between 46Ti, 48Ti and 50Ti, for six visible 3d2 4s2 a 3FJ↦3d2 4s4p z 5DJ' transitions. This beam offers the characteristics required to apply high resolution laser techniques to reaction dynamics crossed-beam experiments.
We generate an atomic beam of titanium (Ti) using a "Ti-ball" Ti-sublimation pump, which is a common getter pump used in ultrahigh vacuum systems. We show that the sublimated atomic beam can be optically pumped into the metastable 3d3(4F)4s a5F5 state, which is the lower energy level in a cycling optical transition that can be used for laser cooling. We measure the atomic density and transverse and longitudinal velocity distributions of the beam through laser fluorescence spectroscopy. We find a metastable atomic flux density of 4.3(2) × 109 s-1 cm-2 with a mean forward velocity of 773(8) m/s at 2.55 cm directly downstream of the center of the Ti-ball. Owing to the details of optical pumping, the beam is highly collimated along the transverse axis parallel to the optical pumping beam and the flux density falls off as 1/r. We discuss how this source can be used to load atoms into a magneto-optical trap.
We realize a magneto-optical trap (MOT) of titanium (Ti) atoms, performing laser cooling on the 498 nm transition between the long-lived 3 d 3 ( F 4 ) 4 s a 5 F 5 metastable state and the 3 d 3 ( F 4 ) 4 p y 5 G 6 o excited state. Without the addition of any repumping light, we observe MOTs of the three stable, I = 0 bosonic isotopes, Ti 46 , Ti 48 , and Ti 50 . Up to 8.30 ( 26 ) × 10 5 Ti 48 atoms are trapped at a maximum density of 1.3 ( 4 ) × 10 11 cm − 3 and at a temperature of 90 ( 15 ) µ K . By measuring the decay of the MOT, we constrain the leakage branching ratio of the cooling transition ( ≤ 2.5 × 10 − 6 ) and the two-body loss coefficient ( ≤ 2 × 10 − 10 cm 3 s − 1 ). Our approach to laser cooling Ti can be applied to other transition metals, enabling a significant expansion of the elements that can be laser cooled.
We report on magneto-optical trapping of the two fermionic isotopes of atomic titanium, 47^{47}47Ti and 49^{49}49Ti. Unlike the even mass-number isotopes, which were recently laser cooled, 47^{47}47Ti and 49^{49}49Ti have nonzero nuclear spins and, consequently, their atomic levels are split by hyperfine structure. Combining and comparing theoretical calculations and atomic beam-spectroscopy measurements, we determine the hyperfine structures and isotope shifts of the 3d24s2\mathrm{3d^24s^2}3d24s2 a3F4→3d2(3P)4s4p(3Po)\mathrm{a^3F_4\rightarrow 3d^2(^3P)4s4p(^3P^o)}a3F4​→3d2(3P)4s4p(3Po) y5D4o\mathrm{y^5D_4^o}y5D4o​ optical-pumping transition at optical wavelength 391nm and the 3d3(4F)4s\mathrm{3d^3(^4F)4s}3d3(4F)4s a5F5→3d3(4F)4p\mathrm{a^5F_5\rightarrow 3d^3(^4F)4p}a5F5​→3d3(4F)4p y5G6o\mathrm{y^5G_6^o}y5G6o​ laser-cooling transition at wavelength 498nm. With this information, we produce magneto-optical traps of both 47^{47}47Ti and 49^{49}49Ti by applying two additional tones of light to repump atoms to the maximum-spin states on the laser-cooling transition. Directly loading from the atomic flux of a titanium sublimation pump, we produce 47^{47}47Ti and 49^{49}49Ti traps with 731(190) and 1142(240) atoms, and with lifetimes of 330(15)ms and 310(8)ms, respectively.
Atomic oven generating controllable atomic beam flux plays a fundamental role in quantum gas experiments. Here, we report a new heater design that can heat up an high temperature atomic oven with fast thermal response. The new heater shows a heating rate improved by 7.65 times comparing to that of the conventional resistive heater while the crucible temperature can heated up to 1200K. With this oven, we generated a collimated ytterbium beam with flux exceeding 1014 atoms/s10^{14} \text{ atoms/s}1014 atoms/s at 823 K. We believe that our design offers a promising solution for shortening experimental dead time and improve the experiment efficiency in cold atom researches.
We realize narrow-linewidth magneto-optical traps of 46^{46}46Ti, 48^{48}48Ti and 50^{50}50Ti atoms based on a 1040 nm-wavelength transition, cooling atoms to a minimum temperature in one dimension of Tz=990(20)T_z=990(20)Tz​=990(20) nK and a three-dimensional temperature of T3D=1.28(7)T_\mathrm{3D}=1.28(7)T3D​=1.28(7) μμμK. Atoms are pre-cooled in a broad-line magneto-optical trap and then transferred with about 25% efficiency to the narrow-line trap. We operate the narrow-line trap in two stages over 85 ms. First, a single cooling beam, blue-detuned from the narrow-linewidth atomic resonance, optically pumps and traps the atoms on a two-dimensional surface where the Zeeman shift from the applied spherical quadrupole magnetic field brings the light nearly to resonance. Second, four additional beams, counter-propagating in the transverse directions, cool and compress the atoms in all dimensions. The high magnetic moment of the laser cooling state makes the dynamics of the narrow-line titanium trap similar to those of other magnetic atoms. We measure the lifetime of the excited state of the transition to be τ=8.2(9)τ=8.2(9)τ=8.2(9) μμμs, indicating a transition linewidth of γ/2π=20(2)γ/2π=20(2)γ/2π=20(2) kHz, and also measure isotope shifts on the narrow-line transition. We use Stern-Gerlach separation on the ultracold Ti gas to measure the mJm_JmJ​-distribution in the narrow-line magneto-optical trap, finding over 98% of the atoms in the stretched spin state.
A new atomic beam source for use in laser-based experiments is described and characterized. The physically collimated source which has been tested using calcium, produces an atomic beam with low angular divergence and narrow transverse Doppler profile, as measured using fluorescence techniques with a near resonant laser beam. The low angular divergence of the source is essential for new experiments which study super-elastic scattering of electrons from laser prepared targets within a magnetic field, since the atomic beam must pass through a narrow gap between the coil windings. The beam density for calcium is calculated to be 2.8 × 109 atoms cm-3 when the source is operated at a temperature of 1090 K. This is sufficient to produce good electron energy loss and super-elastic scattering signals, while ensuring negligible radiation trapping within the atomic beam. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.