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Chinese Physics Letters

Microwave-Optical Double-Resonance Spectroscopy Experiment of 199 Hg + Ground State Hyperfine Splitting in a Linear Ion Trap

Hao Liu, Yu-Na Yang, Yue-Hong He, Haixia Li, Yi-He Chen, Lei She, Jiaomei Li

Published Jun 1, 2014• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report a spectroscopy experiment of the 199 Hg + ground state hyperfine splitting in a linear ion trap. The ions are optically pumped by a discharge lamp and cooled by helium buffer gas. The ground state hyperfine splitting is measured to be 40507347996.8(0.1) Hz by the microwave-optical double-resonance method. A narrow line width as 30 mHz is also observed. This progress builds the foundation for the realization of trapped 199 Hg + ion frequency standards.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/31/6/063201

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Journal of Modern Optics•Feb 1, 1992•93 citations
We report a spectroscopy experiment of the 199 Hg + ground state hyperfine splitting in a linear ion trap. The ions are optically pumped by a discharge lamp and cooled by helium buffer gas. The ground state hyperfine splitting is measured to be 40507347996.8(0.1) Hz by the microwave-optical double-resonance method. A narrow line width as 30 mHz is also observed. This progress builds the foundation for the realization of trapped 199 Hg + ion frequency standards.
A laser optical-pumping, double-resonance experiment was performed on electrodynamically confined 171Yb+^{171}\mathrm{Yb}^{+}171Yb+ ions. The ground-state hyperfine splitting has been determined to be $\ensuremath{\Delta}{W}_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{f}\mathrm{s}}=12642812124.2\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.4$ Hz. The ultimate linewidth obtained in this experiment was 60 mHz, corresponding to a line QQQ of 0.2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1012{10}^{12}1012. It was limited by the stability of the available frequency reference.
We have previously reported experiments using a linear rf trap to store laser-cooled {sup 199}Hg{sup +} ions. Trapping multiple ions increases the signal-to-noise ratio; yet all ions have equally low second-order Doppler shifts if they are confined along the nodal center line of a linear trap. In such an environment, the 40.5 GHz ground-state hyperfine transition in {sup 199}Hg{sup +} is a candidate for an extremely accurate and stable microwave frequency standard. Our redesigned apparatus will operate at cryogenic temperatures to provide very low background gas pressure (resulting in longer ion storage times and immunity from background pressure shifts) and superconductive shielding against stray magnetic fields. We shall discuss progress on this frequency standard and applications of our apparatus to new cooling and squeezing techniques.
The Ramsey fringes on the ground-state hyperfine transition of 199 Hg + (ΔF = 1, Δm F = 0) ions trapped in a hyperbolic Paul trap are firstly observed with the method of time-separated oscillatory fields. The full width at half maximum of central Ramsey fringes is about 25 mHz and the corresponding quality factor Q of the line is greater than 10 12 for the trapped 199 Hg + microwave frequency standard. The hyperfine transition frequency shifted by magnetic field is also measured by the high-resolution Ramsey fringes. The final result is Δν h f s = 40507347997.3(0.5) Hz, which is corrected to zero magnetic field.
We discuss frequency standards based on laser-cooled 199Hg+ ions confined in cryogenic rf traps. In one experiment, the frequency of a microwave source is served to the ions' ground-state hyperfine transition at 40.5 GHz. For seven ions and a Ramsey free precession time of 100 s, the fractional frequency stability is 3.3 (2) X 10-13 (tau) -1/2 for measurement times (tau) < 2 h. The ground-state hyperfine interval is measured to be 40 507 347 996.841 59 (14) (41) Hz, where the first number in parentheses is the uncertainty due to statistics and systematic errors, and the second is the uncertainty in the frequency of the time scale to which the standard is compared. In a second experiment under development, a strong-binding cryogenic trap will confine a single ion used for an optical frequency standard based on a narrow electric quadrupole transition at 282 nm. The bandwidth of the laser used to drive this transition is less than 10 Hz at 563 nm.
Trapping and cooling large numbers of ions, each confined to much less than an optical wavelength, is of great interest for high accuracy spectroscopy, improved frequency standards and atom-radiation field experiments. This can be achieved in a linear rf ion trap where the rf electric fields go to zero along a line rather than at only a point. As a step toward this goal we have constructed a linear trap and have observed simple crystallized linear structures of up to tens of 199Hg+ ions. By varying the axial well depth (determined by a static potential) we have also observed more complex crystallized structures. The ion positions in these structures are in close agreement with a calculation that used as input the measured secular frequencies of the trap. We have also observed the 40.5-GHz ground-state hyperfine transition of trapped 199Hg+ ions by microwave/optical double resonance.