Narrow low-lying states of the Yb - ion

ALFRED Z. MSEZANE, Z. Felfli, D. Sokolovski

H. Arthur Klein, A.S. Bell, G. P. Barwood +2 more

/sup 172/Yb/sup +/ ions in an RF trap have been laser-cooled to 2 K by driving the /sup 2/S/sub 1/2/-/sup 2/P/sub 1/2/ transition at 369.5 nm. Observations of metastable F-state populations at low pressure are reported for large numbers of Yb/sup +/ ions in the trap. A narrow-linewidth ring dye laser for probing an S-D or S-F transition in trapped Yb/sup +/ is considered.>

Connor Goham, J. Britton

Ions displaced from the potential minimum in an RF Paul trap exhibit excess micromotion. A host of well-established techniques are routinely used to sense (and null) this excessive motion in applications ranging from quantum computing to atomic clocks. The rich atomic structure of Yb+, a heavy ion, includes low-lying 2D3/2 states that must be repumped to permit Doppler cooling, typically using a 935 nm laser coupled to the 3D[3/2]1/2 states. In this article, we demonstrate the use of this transition to make resolved-sideband measurements of 3D micromotion in 172Yb+ and 171Yb+ ions. Relative to other sensing techniques, our approach has very low technical overhead and is distinctively compatible with surface-electrode ion traps.

E. Peik

G. I. Bekov, Vladilen S Letokhov, Oleg I. Matveev +1 more

Detection of single atoms Yb has been achieved using the method of electric-field ionization from the high-lying Rydberg states. Atoms of Yb in a beam were excited in three steps to a 17-p state by radiation of three pulsed dye lasers. The statistics of an atom's appearance in the interaction volume have been studied in the single-ion-counting regime at low beam density.

Émile Biémont, J. F. Dutrieux, I. Martı́n +1 more