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European Frequency and Time Forum

Experimental set-up for study of collisions of cold mercury atoms for optical frequency clocks

Marcin Witkowski, Sławomir Bilicki, Bartłomiej Nagórny, Bartosz Przewiezlikowski, Rodolfo Munoz-Rodriguez, Piotr Szymon Żuchowski, R. Ciuryło, M. Zawada

Published Jun 1, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present an experimental set-up of two species mercury-rubidium magneto-optical trap (MOT). The preliminary studies of interactions in mercury MOT and mercury-rubidium MOT are presented. In bosons with the s2 configuration the clock transition 1S0-3P0 is strictly forbidden. The commonly used method to overcome this problem is to induce a coupling with 3P0 state with a state which is optically accessible. In the mercury-rubidium MOT, the presence of cold Rb atoms might be used to tune the probability of the 1S0-3P0 clock transition in mercury.

DOI
10.1109/eftf.2014.7331549

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We present an experimental set-up of two species mercury-rubidium magneto-optical trap (MOT). The preliminary studies of interactions in mercury MOT and mercury-rubidium MOT are presented. In bosons with the s2 configuration the clock transition 1S0-3P0 is strictly forbidden. The commonly used method to overcome this problem is to induce a coupling with 3P0 state with a state which is optically accessible. In the mercury-rubidium MOT, the presence of cold Rb atoms might be used to tune the probability of the 1S0-3P0 clock transition in mercury.
Due to its low sensitivity to blackbody radiation, neutral mercury is a good candidate for the most accurate optical lattice clock. Here we report the observation of cold mercury atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Because of the high vapor pressure at room temperature, the mercury source and the cold pump were cooled down to −40 °C and −70 °C, respectively, to keep the science chamber in an ultra-high vacuum of 6 × 10 −9 Pa. Limited by the power of the UV cooling laser, the one beam folded MOT configuration was adopted, and 1.5 × 10 5 Hg-202 atoms were observed by fluorescence detection.
A cold atom source is important for quantum metrology and precision measurement. To reduce the quantum projection noise limit in optical lattice clock, one can increase the number of cold atoms and reduce the dead time by enhancing the loading rate. In this work, we realize an enhanced cold mercury atom source based on a two-dimensional (2D) magneto-optical trap (MOT). The vacuum system is composed of two titanium chambers connected with a differential pumping tube. Two stable cooling laser systems are adopted for the 2D-MOT and the three-dimensional (3D)-MOT, respectively. Using an optimized 2D-MOT and push beam, about 1.3×106 atoms, which are almost an order of magnitude higher than using a pure 3D-MOT, are loaded into the 3D-MOT for 202Hg atoms. This enhanced cold mercury atom source is helpful in increasing the frequency stability of a neutral mercury lattice clock.
Results on study of MOT fluorescence in presence of microwave field applied to ground state splitting of atoms in trap are presented. Experiments are performed with rubidium atoms in conventional three circular polarized retroreflected beams magneto-optical trap setup in the next conditions. To make trapping, two external cavity diode lasers frequency locked to saturated absorption peaks at D-2 line of rubidium are used. The power of each laser is about 6 mW. The locking circuit allowed the tuning of offset frequency within wing of saturation absorption peak via computer.
We realize a combined trap for bosonic chromium (52Cr) and rubidium (87Rb) atoms. Initial experiments focus on exploring a suitable loading scheme for the combined trap and on studies of new trap loss mechanisms originating from simultaneous trapping of two species. By comparing the trap loss from the 87Rb magneto-optical trap (MOT) in the absence and presence of magnetically trapped ground state 52Cr atoms we determine the scattering cross-section of σ inel,RbCr = 5.0 ± 4.0 × 10−18 m2 for light-induced inelastic collisions between the two species. Studying the trap loss from the Rb magneto-optical trap induced by the Cr cooling-laser light, the photoionization cross-section of the excited 5P3/1 state at an ionizing wavelength of 426 nm is measured to be σ P = 1.1 ± 0.3 × 10−21 m2.