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Joint Conference of the European Frequency and Time Forum and IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFCS)

A factor 1600 increase in neutral atomic beam intensity using laser cooling

Maarten D. Hoogerland, Jan P. J. Driessen, Edgar J. D. Vredenbregt, Henry J. L. Megens, M. P. Schuwer, Herman C. W. Beijerinck, K. A. H. van Leeuwen

Published Dec 17, 2002• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Using a three-step transverse cooling scheme, a strongly diverging flow of metastable Ne*(/sup 3/P/sub 2/) atoms is compressed into a small diameter (3 mm), well-collimated (1 mrad) atomic beam, using only 200 mW total laser power. This extremely valuable technique for frequency standard applications is applicable to many different atomic systems.>

DOI
10.1109/freq.1994.398267

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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Nov 28, 1993•4 citations
Using a three-step transverse cooling scheme, a strongly diverging flow of metastable Ne*(/sup 3/P/sub 2/) atoms is compressed into a small diameter (3 mm), well-collimated (1 mrad) atomic beam, using only 200 mW total laser power. This extremely valuable technique for frequency standard applications is applicable to many different atomic systems.>
We propose to use a three-step transverse and longitudinal cooling scheme, to compress and collimate a strongly diverging flow of metastable rare gas atoms. Simulations show that an atom beam flux of 1010 8-1 in a small diameter (<1 mm), well-collimated (divergence <10 mrad), slow (50 ms-1 ) atomic beam could be achieved. This technique can be extremely valuable in many areas of atomic physics, e.g. in (electron) spectroscopy and atomic collision physics where high beam densities are desirable.
The study of collisions between excited atoms requires high-intensity atomic beams to achieve detector signals of sufficient strength. Producing large densities of excited rare gas atoms R is especially difficult, since with conventional sources metastable atoms R make up a tiny fraction of ≈10-5 of the total beam flux. In such cases, 'brightening' the beam is the only way to achieve a sufficiently large flux. We have followed a scheme proposed by Metcalf to brighten an atomic beam of neon. The setup employs laser cooling on the Ne((3s)3P2 → (3p)3D3) cycling transition, and consists of three stages. First, we collimate all atoms emerging from a discharge source within a half-angle θ0 = 100 mrad. Second, the collimated beam is focused to a point. Third, the now converging beam is re-collimated to form a thin and bright atomic beam.
We have developed a ``beam brightener'' in which several different laser cooling methods produce a highly monochromatic, unidirectional and intense beam of metastable Ne(3s;^3P_2) atoms. The beam brightener consists of four main stages. From an exited neon source we capture in a collimating section 5× 10^11 Ne(3s)/s from which ≈ 50 % is slowed to 100 m/s in a Zeeman slower. The final velocity distribution shows a width of 3.3 m/s uc(RMS,) corresponding to a temperature of 12 mK. A fraction of ≈ 25 % of these cold atoms is captured by a magneto-optic compressor and molded into a 0.7 mm uc(FWHM) wide atomic beam that contains up to 5× 10^10 Ne(3s)/s. The resulting density is 1.1× 10^9 Ne(3s)/cm^3. In the final step, a Doppler cooler is used to minimize the divergence of the beam to 10 mrad. This value will further improve once the Doppler cooler is replaced by a sub-Doppler cooler. We plan to use this ``bright beam'' to investigate the ionization probabilities in Ne(3s)+Ne(3s) collisions. Emphasis will be on the suppression of ionization when the atoms are spin-polarized. This has important implications for the possibilities of using metastable atoms for BEC-type experiments. Present adress: NIST
Laser cooled atomic gases and atomic beams are widely studied samples in experimental research in atomic and optical physics. For the application of ultra cold gases as model systems for e.g. quantum many particle systems, the atomic species is not very important. Thus this field is dominated by alkaline, earthalkaline elements which are easily accessible with conventional laser sources and have convenient closed cooling transition. On the otherhand, laser cooled atoms may also be interesting for technological applications, for instance for the creation of novel materials by atomic nanofabrication (ANF). There it will be important to use technologically relevant materials. As an example, using group III atoms of the periodical table in ANF may open a route to generate fully 3D structured composite materials. The minimal requirement in such an ANF experiment is the collimation of an atomic beam which is accessible by one dimensional laser cooling. In this dissertation, I describe transverse laser cooling of an Indium atomic beam. For efficient laser cooling on a cycling transition, I have built a tunable, continuous-wave coherent ultraviolet source at 326 nm based on frequency tripling. For this purpose, two independent high power Yb-doped fiber amplifiers for the generation of the fundamental radiation at 977 nm have been constructed. I have observed sub-Doppler transverse laser cooling of an Indium atomic beam on a cycling transition of In by introducing a polarization gradient in the linear-perpendicular-linear configuration. The transverse velocity spread of a laser-cooled In atomic beam at full width at half maximum was achieved to be 13.5 ± 3.8 cm/s yielding a full divergence of only 0.48 ± 0.13 mrad. In addition, nonlinear spectroscopy of a 3-level, Lambda-type level system driven by a pump and a probe beam has been investigated in order to understand the absorption line shapes used as a frequency reference in a previous two-color spectroscopy experiment. For the analysis of this atomic system, I have applied a density matrix theory providing an excellent basis for understanding the observed line shapes.
A simple, versatile and effective scheme is presented for intensifying atomic beams by transverse laser cooling with two separated, intense standing waves. The first standing wave is negatively detuned while the second is positively detuned with respect to the cooling transition. A realization of the scheme, involving only one laser and simple optics, is proposed. Semiclassical calculations suggest that with a laser power of 0.1-1 W and an interaction length of a few cm, a flux enhancement of approximately 10 2 -10 3 should be obtainable by a two-dimensional set-up. Specific results are presented for the case of metastable argon.