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Yuhang jice jishu

Experimental Study on the Second-Stage Laser Cooling of Atomic Ytterbium

Xinye Xu

Published Jan 1, 2011• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We present the experiments on the second-stage cooling for the ytterbium atomic clock.The atoms in the 389.9 nm magneto-optical trap are successfully transferred into the 555.8 nm magneto-optical trap.The temperatures of 174Yb and 171Yb atomic clouds are about 100 μK and 30 μK respectively,measured by the time-of-flight method.

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We present an upgraded setup for cooling and trapping of ytterbium atoms in a optical clock experiment. The experiment aims to cool and trap ytterbium atoms in a two stage magneto-optical trap (MOT) (at 399nm and 556nm for the first and second stage, respectively) and to probe the narrow-line clock transition at 578 nm in an optical lattice at the magic wavelength (759 nm). We describe here the generation of all the laser sources and the design of a new physic package, including the vacuum chamber and the atomic source.
We present an optical lattice clock based on ytterbium 171Yb atoms developed in the laboratories of INRIM. In the experiment, we cool and trap ytterbium atoms in a two stage magneto-optical trap (MOT) (at 399nm and 556nm for the first and second stage, respectively). Atoms are then transferred in a horizontal, one-dimensional optical lattice at the magic wavelength (759 nm). Here the clock transition at 578nm is probed by a laser stabilized on an ultra-stable cavity. We describe the generation of all the laser sources, the physic package and the operation of the clock. Lasers at 399 nm, 556nm and 578nm are obtained, with different techniques, using non-linear crystals starting from infrared sources. The clock laser is stabilized using a high finesse notched ULE cavity. The lattice is made with a titanium-sapphire laser. The aluminum vacuum chamber is designed for wide optical access and its temperature is measured by 8 thermistors for blackbody shift evaluation. Our system allows for fast loading of the lattice with 1 × 104atoms trapped in the lattice in 250 ms. We obtained preliminary spectroscopy results and we locked the clock laser to the atomic line. Future perspectives are discussed.
A compact laser cooling system for transportable optical lattice clocks based on cold 171 Yb atoms has been presented. The system size has been reduced by eliminating the first cooling stage and using compact configurations for the main subsystems of the laser cooling system. A Zeeman slower has been modeled and developed, reducing the velocity of atoms from a thermal source to a level sufficient for their direct capture in a second-stage magneto-optical trap, avoiding the first cooling stage. A method for estimating the number of atoms and their temperature in the magneto-optical trap is presented. The performance of the compact laser cooling system with the developed Zeeman slower has been experimentally confirmed: ~10 6 171 Yb atoms with a temperature of ~35 μK have been collected in ~1 s. The achieved parameters allow for loading of ~4000 atoms into the optical lattice.
The possibility of using an atom chip and a diffraction grating to form a compact magneto-optical trap for ytterbium atoms, which can be used to develop compact atomic interferometers and optical clocks based on ultracold atoms, has been studied. An experiment on the laser cooling of the 171Yb and 174Yb isotopes in a first‑stage magneto-optical trap has been carried out to determine initial requirements for the mentioned elements. The design of the atom chip forming a magnetic field gradient up to 60 G/cm has been calculated. The optimal configurations of the diffraction grating that allow forming both the first- and second-stage magneto-optical traps have been evaluated.
We report the experimental realization of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) of 174 Yb atoms operating on the 1 So− 3 P 1 intercombination transition at 555.8 nm. The green MOT is loaded by a Zeeman-slowed atomic beam. In order to increase the capture velocity of the MOT, we use the trapping laser beams consisting of five discrete frequency components obtained by modulating the laser light through an electro-optic modulator. The trapped atomic number of the 174 Yb isotope is about 6.2 × 10 5 , and the temperature of the cold atomic cloud is estimated to be about 100 μK. The success of the green MOT is an important step towards the goal of an ytterbium optical clock.
Experiments on trapping ytterbium atoms in various optical lattices are presented. After the two-stage cooling, first in a blue magneto—optical trap and then in a green magneto—optical trap, the ultracold 171 Yb atoms are successfully loaded into one-, two-, and three-dimensional optical lattices operating at the Stark-free wavelength, respectively. The temperature, number, and lifetime of cold 171 Yb atoms in one-dimensional lattice are measured. After optimization, the one-dimensional lattice with cold 171 Yb atoms is used for developing an ytterbium optical clock.