Spectroscopy and laser cooling on the
1S0 1 S 0 –
3P1 3 P 1 line in Yb via an injection-locked diode laser at 1,111.6 nm
We identify an inverted Lamb dip in the saturated absorption spectroscopy of the
(6s2) 1S0 − (6s6p) 3P1 transition in
171Yb. The signal has only been observed with the two hyperfine lines of this spin
I=21 isotope. For both lines the application of a dc magnetic field transforms a two-level scheme into a four-level scheme, with degeneracy only marginally lifted in the ground state. The atoms are excited through
π transitions, while the de-excitation process completes a simple optical pumping scheme. However, the full explanation of the enhanced absorption is yet to be determined. The anomalous absorption signal is used to generate a dispersive curve for 556 nm laser stabilisation and the stabilised light cools
171Yb atoms in a two-stage magneto-optical trap, achieving temperatures below 50
μK. The Doppler-free spectroscopy scheme is further used to measure isotopic frequency shifts and hyperfine separations for the intercombination line in Yb.
We demonstrate launching of laser-cooled Yb atoms in a cold atomic fountain. Atoms in a collimated thermal beam are first cooled and captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) operating on the strongly allowed ${{}^{1}S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{{}^{1}P}_{1}$ transition at 399 nm (blue line). They are then transferred to a MOT on the weakly allowed ${{}^{1}S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{{}^{3}P}_{1}$ transition at 556 nm (green line). Cold atoms from the green MOT are launched against gravity at a velocity of around 2.5 m/s using a pair of green beams. We trap more than
107 atoms in the blue MOT and transfer up to
70 into the green MOT. The temperature for the odd isotope
171Yb is
1mK in the blue MOT, and reduces by a factor of 40 in the green MOT.