Fundamental Studies of Collisional Processes in the First Resonance Transition of Ytterbium.

William H. Dowd, Richard Roy, Rajendra K. Shrestha +1 more

Hideki Konishi

Хворостов Евгений Борисович, Sergei A. Kochubei, Рубцова Наталия Николаевна

Abstract The method of modified stimulated photon echo was applied to the study of collisional decay of orientation and alignment (polarization moments of the threefold degenerate 3P1 level) of atomic gas 174Yb. Two ways of resonant atoms excitation were used according to three-level schemes 0 → 1 → 1 and 0 → 1 → 0. The results obtained by these two ways were compared for a gas mixture ytterbium with xenon.

С. М. Казаков, O. V. Khristoforov

Peng Zhang, A. Dalgarno, Robin Côté

A. Bauch, D. Schnier, Chr. Tamm

We describe and discuss experiments related to the phenomenon of population trapping of ytterbium ions in the extremely long-lived 4f13 6s2 2F7/2 level. Ion clouds are confined in a radiofrequency trap in the presence of helium buffer gas. The experimental set-up permits electronic ion detection, the observation of resonance fluorescence, and optical excitation at alternating wavelengths to excite either the 2S1/2–2P1/2 resonance transition, or transitions of similar wavelength which provide optical deexcitation of ions from the 2F7/2 level to the ground state. The observed dependence of the population trapping rates on helium pressure is attributed to the effect of fine structure mixing collisions. The transitions which deexcite ions from the 2F7/2 state show Lorentzian lineshapes with widths of 6–10 GHz and resonance wavelengths which are in significant disagreement with tabulated level positions.