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Chinese Optics Letters

Frequency locking of a 399-nm laser referenced to fluorescence spectrum of an ytterbium atomic beam

Yun Long Yun Long, Zhuan-Xian Xiong, Xi Zhang, Mengjiao Zhang Mengjiao Zhang, Baolong Lv, Lingxiang He Lingxiang He

Published Jan 1, 2014• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The laser cooling of ytterbium (Yb) atoms needs a 399-nm laser which operates on the strong 1 S0 -1 P1 transition and can be locked at the desired frequencies for different Yb isotopes.We demonstrate a frequency locking method using the fluorescence spectrum of an Yb atomic beam as a frequency reference.For unresolved fluorescence peaks, we make the spectrum of the even isotopes vanish by using the strong angular-dependence of the fluorescence radiations; the remained closely-spaced peaks are thus clearly resolved and able to serve as accurate frequency references.A computer-controlled servo system is used to lock the laser frequency to a single fluorescence peak of interest, and a frequency stability of 304 kHz is achieved.This frequency-locked laser enables us to realize stable blue magneto-optic-traps (MOT) for all abundant Yb isotopes.

DOI
10.3788/col201412.021401

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The laser cooling of ytterbium (Yb) atoms needs a 399-nm laser which operates on the strong 1 S0 -1 P1 transition and can be locked at the desired frequencies for different Yb isotopes.We demonstrate a frequency locking method using the fluorescence spectrum of an Yb atomic beam as a frequency reference.For unresolved fluorescence peaks, we make the spectrum of the even isotopes vanish by using the strong angular-dependence of the fluorescence radiations; the remained closely-spaced peaks are thus clearly resolved and able to serve as accurate frequency references.A computer-controlled servo system is used to lock the laser frequency to a single fluorescence peak of interest, and a frequency stability of 304 kHz is achieved.This frequency-locked laser enables us to realize stable blue magneto-optic-traps (MOT) for all abundant Yb isotopes.
We report the realization of ytterbium magneto-optical trap (MOT) operating on the dipole-allowed 1 S 0 — 1 P 1 transition at 398.9 nm. The MOT is loaded by a slowed atomic beam produced by a Zeeman slower. All seven stable isotopes of Yb atoms could be trapped separately at different laser detuning values. Over 10 7 174 Yb atoms are collected in the MOT, whereas the atom number of fermionic isotope 171 Yb is roughly 2.3 × 10 6 due to a lower abundance. Without the Zeeman slower, the trapped atom numbers are one order of magnitude lower. Both the even and odd isotopes are recognized as excellent candidates of optical clock transition, so the cooling and trapping of ytterbium atoms by the blue MOT is an important step for building an optical clock.
A frequency-stabilized light source emitting at 556 nm is realized by frequency doubling a 1112 nm laser, which is phase locked to a fiber-based optical frequency comb. The 1112 nm laser is either an ytterbium (Yb)-doped distributed feedback fiber laser or a master-slave laser system that uses an external cavity diode laser as a master laser. We have achieved the continuous frequency stabilization of the light source over a 5 day period. With the light source, we have completed the second-stage magneto-optical trapping (MOT) of Yb atoms using the S10–P31 intercombination transition. The temperature of the ultracold atoms in the MOT was 40 μK when measured using the time-of-flight method, and this is sufficient for loading the atoms into an optical lattice. The fiber-based frequency comb is shown to be a useful tool for controlling the laser frequency in cold-atom experiments.
A frequency-stabilized 556-nm laser is an essential tool for experimental studies associated with 1 S0-3 P1 intercombination transition of ytterbium (Yb) atoms.A 556-nm laser light using a single-pass second harmonic generation (SHG) is obtained in a periodically poled MgO:LiNbO3 (PPLN) crystal pumped by a fiber laser at 1111.6 nm.A robust frequency stabilization method which facilitates the control of laser frequency with an accuracy better than the natural linewidth (187 kHz) of the intercombination line is developed.The short-term frequency jitter is reduced to less than 100 kHz by locking the laser to a home-made reference cavity.A slow frequency drift is sensed by the 556-nm fluorescence signal of an Yb atomic beam excited by one probe beam and is reduced to less than 50-kHz by a computer-controlled servo system.The laser can be stably locked for more than 5 h.This frequency stabilization method can be extended to other alkaline-earth-like atoms with similar weak intercombination lines.
We demonstrate stabilization of an ultraviolet diode laser via Doppler-free spectroscopy of Ytterbium ions in a discharge. Our technique employs polarization spectroscopy, which produces a natural dispersive lineshape whose zero-crossing is largely immune to environmental drifts, making this signal an ideal absolute frequency reference for Yb+ ion trapping experiments. We stabilize an external-cavity diode laser near 369 nm for cooling Yb+ ions, using amplitude modulated polarization spectroscopy and a commercial PID feedback system. We achieve stable, low-drift locking with a standard deviation of measured laser frequency ∼ 400 kHz over 10 minutes, limited by the instantaneous linewidth of the diode laser. These results and the simplicity of our optical setup makes our approach attractive for stabilization of laser sources in atomic physics applications.
We report here an atomic beam loaded magneto-optical trap (MOT) for metastable krypton atoms in which the fluorescence signal from the atomic beam is used to lock the cooling laser frequency. The fluorescence signal is generated by exciting the metastable krypton atomic beam using a probe laser beam (i.e. part of the cooling laser beam) intersecting the atomic beam at an angle. A spectral shift in the fluorescence signal can be achieved by varying the angle between the probe laser beam and the atomic beam to obtain the desired frequency detuning to lock the cooling laser frequency. This has been used to optimize the number of cold atoms in the MOT. The dependence of the peak height and slope of the atomic beam fluorescence (ABF) locking signal on the RF power in the discharge tube and pressure in the observation chamber of the setup has been studied to correlate its effect on the number of atoms in the MOT.
We demonstrate launching of laser-cooled Yb atoms in a cold atomic fountain. Atoms in a collimated thermal beam are first cooled and captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) operating on the strongly allowed ${{}^{1}S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{{}^{1}P}_{1}$ transition at 399 nm (blue line). They are then transferred to a MOT on the weakly allowed ${{}^{1}S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{{}^{3}P}_{1}$ transition at 556 nm (green line). Cold atoms from the green MOT are launched against gravity at a velocity of around 2.5 m/s using a pair of green beams. We trap more than 107{10}^{7}107 atoms in the blue MOT and transfer up to 7070%70 into the green MOT. The temperature for the odd isotope 171Yb^{171}\mathrm{Yb}171Yb is  1mK~1 \mathrm{mK} 1mK in the blue MOT, and reduces by a factor of 40 in the green MOT.