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Quantum Electronics

Investigation of the transition at a wavelength of 506 nm, intended for deep cooling of thulium atoms

Daniil I. Provorchenko, Dmitry O. Tregubov, D. Mishin, Artem A. Golovizin, E.S. Fedorova, Ksenia Yu. Khabarova, В. Н. Сорокин, N. Kolachevsky

Published May 19, 2021• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract A scheme is proposed for the third stage of laser cooling of thulium atoms at a wavelength of 506.2 nm, and a system for stabilising the laser radiation frequency is described, which provides the required characteristics. The transition at a wavelength of 506.2 nm is detected in a magneto-optical trap with the employment of the developed laser setup. The value of hyperfine splitting of the transition upper level is measured, and the single-dimension cooling at this wavelength is observed for the first time.

DOI
10.1070/qel17584

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Quantum Electronics•Jun 30, 2014•23 citations
Abstract A scheme is proposed for the third stage of laser cooling of thulium atoms at a wavelength of 506.2 nm, and a system for stabilising the laser radiation frequency is described, which provides the required characteristics. The transition at a wavelength of 506.2 nm is detected in a magneto-optical trap with the employment of the developed laser setup. The value of hyperfine splitting of the transition upper level is measured, and the single-dimension cooling at this wavelength is observed for the first time.
Sub-Doppler laser cooling in a magneto-optical trap for thulium atoms at a wavelength of 410.6 nm has been experimentally studied. Without any dedicated molasses period of sub-Doppler cooling, the cloud of 3 × 106 atoms at a temperature of 25(5) μK was observed. The measured temperature is significantly lower than the Doppler limit of 240 μK for the cooling transition at 410.6 nm. The high efficiency of the sub-Doppler cooling process is due to a near-degeneracy of the Landé g-factors of the lower 4f 136s 2 (J = 7/2) and the upper 4f 125d 3/26s 2 (J = 9/2) cooling levels.
The efficient capture of thulium atoms from an atomic beam into a magneto-optical trap at the spectrally narrow 530-nm transition with a natural linewidth of 350 kHz, avoiding the primary cooling stage that is standard in many experiments, has been demonstrated. To optimize the capture parameters, a machine learning method with automated control of the experimental setup and feedback has been used, which has made it possible to achieve more than 75% capture efficiency compared to the previously used configuration. In addition, the number of atoms has been measured using 530-nm probe radiation with the ability to achieve signal-to-noise levels comparable to those obtained with fluorescence detection on the strong 410-nm transition. This significantly reduces the requirements for the 410-nm laser system, which was previously used for primary cooling and detection of atoms, simplifying the experimental setup and paving the way toward transportable thulium optical clocks.
Abstract A population transfer from the upper level of the clock transition in thulium atoms to the ground level is demonstrated by using radiation with a wavelength of 402 nm. The method for detecting the clock transition excitation that is not affected by technical fluctuations of the number of atoms in an optical lattice is investigated. The hyperfine splitting of the |4f12(3F2)5d5/2 6s2; J = 7/2〉 level in the thulium atom is measured to be 1480(9) MHz. The suggested method for population transfer can be applied to both the hyperfine components of the clock transition intended for compensating Zeeman effect in a thulium optical clock.
The possibility of laser cooling of thulium atoms is considered. The hyperfine structure of almost cyclic 4f 13 6s 2 ( J g = 7/2) ↔ 4f 12 5d 3/2 6s 2 ( J e = 9/2) and 4f 13 6s 2 ( J g = 7/2) ↔ 4f 12 5d 5/2 6s 2 ( J e = 9/2) transitions at 410.6 and 420.4 nm, respectively, is studied by the method of sub-Doppler saturation spectroscopy in counterpropagating laser beams. The hyperfine splitting of excited levels involved in these transitions is measured and the natural linewidths of these transitions are determined. The structure of the neighbouring 4f 13 6s6p ( J e = 5/2) and 4f 12 5d 5/2 6s 2 ( J e = 7/2) levels is studied for the first time by this method. The decay probabilities of the J e = 9/2 levels via channels removing atoms from the cooling cycle are calculated. It is found that the branching ratio for the strong transition at 410.6 nm ( A = 6 × 10 7 s -1 ) is smaller than 2 × 10 -5 , which makes this transition most promising for laser cooling. The laser cooling of atoms in a Zeeman cooler at this transition is simulated. The possibility of using a laser-cooled cloud of thulium atoms to study the metrological transition at 1.14 μm is discussed.
Laser cooling is a necessary tool to generate ultracold atoms in magneto-optical traps (MOT), as atomic transitions can be excited with lasers to address different energy levels. As these transitions differ for each quantum system, flexibility in delivering the right wavelength and power at the atoms is key for viable quantum devices or experiments. In our work, we present custom laser systems at the edges of the thulium emission range for improving barium and strontium atoms trapping experiments [1]. Two of barium's narrow atomic transitions can be directly addressed with lasers at 1762 nm and 2052 nm, while third harmonic generation from 2067 nm and 2095 nm allows to address the red MOT cooling and the clock transitions in strontium at 689 nm and 698 nm.
Secondary laser cooling has been realised on the weak dipole transition 4f13(2Fo)6s2, J = 7/2, F=4 → 4f12(3H6) 5d5/26s2, J' = 9/2, F' = 5 with the wavelength of 530.7 nm and natural width of 350 kHz. The temperature of the atomic cloud in a magnetooptical trap (MOT) was 30 μK at the lifetime of 2 s and the number of atoms 105. Approximately 1% of atoms from the MOT have been reloaded to an optical dipole trap and to one-dimensional optical lattice at the wavelength of 532 nm. The atom lifetime in the optical lattice was 320 ms. We propose to employ thulium atoms captured in an optical lattice as an optical frequency reference.