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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Thulium Fibre Lasers for Quantum Applications

Andrea Pertoldi, Poul Varming, Patrick Bowen Montague

Published Jun 26, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec57999.2023.10232187

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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.
Laser cooling has become a powerful tool for producing quantum gases and has enabled the study of a wide range of phenomena only accessible at ultracold temperatures. This thesis will describe the implementation and characterization of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for laser cooling strontium to microkelvin temperatures operating on the narrow 689nm transition (the “red” MOT). The red MOT is the second cooling stage required to create quantum degenerate gases of strontium, bridging the temperatures and densities produced by the first cooling stage (the 461 nm “blue” MOT) and the shallow conservative traps for evaporation to quantum degeneracy.
Summary form only given. All-optical production of quantum degenerate atomic gases has been one of the long-standing targets in laser cooling. We report a novel approach towards this direction based on a narrow-line laser cooling for strontium atoms. By employing two transitions with markedly different dipole moments, i.e., the allowed /sup 1/S/sub 0/-/sup 1/P/sub 1/ (/spl lambda/=461 nm, /spl gamma/=2/spl pi//spl times/32 MHz) and the spin-forbidden /sup 1/S/sub 0/-/sup 3/P/sub 1/ (/spl lambda/=689 nm, /spl gamma/=2/spl pi//spl times/7.6 kHz) transition, thermal strontium atoms were Doppler-cooled down to 400 nK or the photon recoil temperature, in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Presents the corresponding energy levels for cooling and trapping. The use of a narrow spin-forbidden transition successfully reduced the radiation trapping effects at a high atom density over 10/sup 12//cm/sup 3/, thus enabling us to attain the hitherto high phase space density of 0.01 in a MOT.
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.
Deep laser cooling of atoms, ions, and molecules facilitates the study of fundamental physics as well as applied research. In this work, we report on the narrow-line laser cooling of thulium atoms at the wavelength of 506.2nm with the natural linewidth of 7.8kHz, which widens the limits of atomic cloud parameters control. Temperatures of about 400nK, phase-space density of up to 3.5×10−4 and 2×106 number of trapped atoms were achieved. We have also demonstrated formation of double cloud structure in an optical lattice by adjusting parameters of the 506.2nm magneto-optical trap. These results can be used to improve experiments with BEC, atomic interferometers, and optical clocks.
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.
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.