Coherent blue laser beam production in a rubidium vapour cell

Marcus Kienlen, Noah T. Holte, Hunter A. Dassonville +1 more

Chris J. Vale

This thesis presents a study on the realisation of a usable rubidium atomic beam inside a sealed vapour cell. A velocity selective optical pumping scheme was implemented to enable the detection of atoms of a particular velocity class travelling between two separated laser beams. This represents a new spectroscopic technique, the usefulness of which has been demonstrated through its applications. In the present work, the vapour cell atomic beam has been used to measure Larmor precession of polarised atoms in a magnetic field and one-dimensional laser cooling.

Shannon K. Mayer, Marcus Kienlen, Noah T. Holte +4 more

Justin T. Schultz, Sven Abend, D. Döring +5 more

We observe coherent, cw, 455 nm blue-beam production via frequency upconversion in cesium vapor. Two IR lasers induce strong double excitation in a heated cesium vapor cell, allowing the atoms to undergo a double cascade and produce a coherent, collimated, blue beam copropagating with the two IR pump lasers.

Marcus Kienlen

Marcus Kienlen, Noah T. Holte, Hunter A. Dassonville +4 more

We describe an experiment for generating and characterizing a beam of collimated blue light (CBL) in a rubidium vapor. Two low-power, grating-feedback diode lasers, operating at 780.2 nm (5S1/2→5P3/2) and 776.0 nm (5P3/2→5D5/2), respectively, provide step-wise excitation to the 5D excited state in rubidium. Under the right experimental conditions, cascade decay through the 6P excited state will yield a collimated blue (420-nm) beam of light with high temporal and spatial coherence. We investigate the production of a blue beam under a variety of experimental conditions and characterize the spatial coherence and spectral characteristics. This experiment provides advanced undergraduate students with a unique opportunity to investigate nonlinear optical phenomena in the laboratory and uses equipment that is commonly available in laboratories equipped to investigate diode-laser-based absorption spectroscopy in rubidium.