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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Transition strengths and lifetimes measured by optical nutation

Arlee V. Smith, T. D. Raymond

Published May 12, 1991• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

A transform-limited light pulse from a tunable laser can be used to measure atomic lifetimes much shorter or much longer than the light puke duration by measuring linewidths in the case of short lifetimes or decay rates in the case of long lifetimes. However, when the atomic lifetime is comparable to the duration of the exciting pulse, these methods are difficult to apply. We demonstrate that, for the latter case, an optical nutation measurement yields both lifetimes and transition strengths with high accuracy. We prepare oxygen atoms in a single angular momentum state (J, mj) in a collision-free and Doppler-free environment.

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A transform-limited light pulse from a tunable laser can be used to measure atomic lifetimes much shorter or much longer than the light puke duration by measuring linewidths in the case of short lifetimes or decay rates in the case of long lifetimes. However, when the atomic lifetime is comparable to the duration of the exciting pulse, these methods are difficult to apply. We demonstrate that, for the latter case, an optical nutation measurement yields both lifetimes and transition strengths with high accuracy. We prepare oxygen atoms in a single angular momentum state (J, mj) in a collision-free and Doppler-free environment.
The oscillator strength of the (6s6p)3{)\mathrm{}}^{3})3P1{P}_{1}P1​-(6s7s)1{)\mathrm{}}^{1})1S0{S}_{0}S0​ transition and the lifetime of the (6s7s)1{)\mathrm{}}^{1})1S0{S}_{0}S0​ state in 174Yb^{174}\mathrm{Yb}174Yb have been measured to be (8.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.6)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}4}$ and 45.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0 nsec, respectively. The former value was obtained by use of coherent optical techniques (optical nutation and ac Stark splitting), while the latter was obtained by monitoring cascade fluorescence following pulsed excitation.
We report resolution of the 1% discrepancy between theory and experiment for the lifetime of the first excited state of Na. Determining the atomic lifetime by a novel method, we have measured the natural linewidth of the $3{}^{2}{S}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}3{}^{2}{P}_{3/2}$ transition with <0.25<0.25%<0.25 accuracy through precision spectroscopy on an optically prepared sample of ultracold, two-level atoms. The resulting 32P3/23{}^{2}{P}_{3/2}32P3/2​ lifetime of 16.237(35) ns disagrees with previous time-domain measurements but is in good agreement with recent calculations and a new fast beam result.
We have used two methods to measure the oscillator strength of the transition between the ground and 17992 cm-1 level in 174Yb. The first technique involves exciting the transition with a laser pulse that is nearly time-bandwidth limited, of uniform intensity, and has a reproducible shape from shot to shot. The population left in the excited state after the pulse varies sinusoidally with a period that depends on the integral over time of the electric field amplitude and the transition oscillator strength. These are the Rabi oscillations that are predicted by application of the Schrodinger equation to the two-level atom. The excited-state population is probed using a two-step photoionization to the continuum. The electric field amplitude is determined from the temporal profile and the intensity of the laser pulse. The second method involves observation of the polarization rotation of a set of degenerate sublevels brought about by a time-bandwidth limited light-shift laser. One sublevel (mj = 0) of the J = 1 level at 17992 cm-1 is populated by a linearly polarized laser. A second copropagating light-shift laser, which is linearly polarized at an angle to the first laser, is tuned between 7.5 and 30 GHz off-resonance with the transition. The light-shift laser causes population to be promoted into the mi = ±1 levels by a virtual transition through the ground J = 0, = 0 level. Two linearly polarized photoionizing lasers photoionize the population only from the mi = ±1 levels. The photoion signal oscillates sinusoidally with a period that depends only on the integrated pulse intensity, the laser detuning, and the transition oscillator strength.
Optical lattice clocks based on the narrow ( 5 s 2 ) S 0 1 − ( 5 s 5 p ) P 0 3 transition in neutral strontium (Sr) are among the most precise and accurate measurement devices in existence. Although this transition is completely forbidden by selection rules, state mixing from the hyperfine interaction in Sr 87 provides a weakly allowed transition that can be coherently driven with practical clock laser intensities. While the coherent interrogation times of optical clocks are typically set by the linewidth of the probe laser, this limitation can be overcome in synchronous differential comparisons between ensembles. In such measurements the natural lifetime of the S 0 1 – P 0 3 clock transition becomes the fundamental limiting factor to the duration of a single run of the experiment. However, a direct measurement of the decay rate of the clock excited state is quite challenging due to the competing effects of other loss channels such as Raman scattering, inelastic collisions, and atom loss due to background gas. In this work, we monitor the decay of Sr atoms trapped in an optical lattice and initialized in the P 0 3 state. By making measurements of high and low density ensembles of both Sr 87 and Sr 88 across varying lattice trap depths, we isolate radiative decay, which accounts for a significant fraction of the observed decays at low depths. We obtain a natural radiative decay lifetime of 167 − 40 + 79 s for the P 0 3 clock state in Sr 87 , a value that is consistent with previously reported measurements and theoretical predictions. We also introduce an additional measurement scheme that involves repeated measurements of the ground-state population within a single experimental sequence, validating our model and the consistency of the measured rates. We expect that the techniques introduced in this work are applicable to lifetime measurements of long-lived metastable states in other atoms and ions used for clocks and quantum computing. The results presented in this work inform performance estimates of proposed gravitational wave detectors and long-baseline atom interferometers making use of Sr 87 .
We will describe a next-generation active atomic frequency reference based on super-radiant pulses of laser light from the ultra-narrow, 1 mHz linewidth, optical clock transition in an ensemble of cold 87Sr atoms. Light is stimulated from the millihertz linewidth transition by confining an ensemble of laser cooled atoms inside of a high finesse optical cavity. Such a light source has been proposed as a next-generation active atomic frequency reference, with the potential to enable high-precision optical frequency references to be used outside laboratory environments. We achieve a remarkable short term fractional frequency stability, 6.7 × 1016 at 1 s of averaging, absolute accuracy, 2 Hz (4 × 1015 fractional frequency), and high insensitivity to changes in the cavity length that limits the performance of todays more stable lasers. We will also discuss current work on cavity-enhanced dispersive measurements to perform high resolution spectroscopy and atom counting.