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Physics-Uspekhi

Laser cooling of thulium atoms to ground vibrational state in an optical lattice

Daniil I. Provorchenko, Dmitry O. Tregubov, Artem A. Golovizin, N. Kolachevsky

Published May 1, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The method of laser cooling of atoms, first implemented in the early 1980s at the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISAN), turned out to be an exceptionally powerful tool that provided revolutionary breakthroughs in such areas as quantum sensorics, the physics of Bose±Einstein and Fermi-condensates, quantum informatics, and many others.It was precisely due to the laser cooling method that atomic fountains Ð the most accurate microwave clocks Ð made their appearance, and impetus was lent to the area of optical frequency standards, which today have surpassed the relative error of 10 À18 .In this review, dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the founding of ISAN, we will present some modern methods and experimental results aimed at the development of optical clocks on thulium atoms.In addition to the review part, the paper demonstrates a new experimental protocol for the preparation of thulium atoms using sideband cooling of the spectrally narrow 506.2-nm transition.Ensembles of atoms in the initial states of clock transitions in the ground vibrational sublevel of the optical lattice have been attained.

DOI
10.3367/ufne.2024.05.039678

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The method of laser cooling of atoms, first implemented in the early 1980s at the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISAN), turned out to be an exceptionally powerful tool that provided revolutionary breakthroughs in such areas as quantum sensorics, the physics of Bose±Einstein and Fermi-condensates, quantum informatics, and many others.It was precisely due to the laser cooling method that atomic fountains Ð the most accurate microwave clocks Ð made their appearance, and impetus was lent to the area of optical frequency standards, which today have surpassed the relative error of 10 À18 .In this review, dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the founding of ISAN, we will present some modern methods and experimental results aimed at the development of optical clocks on thulium atoms.In addition to the review part, the paper demonstrates a new experimental protocol for the preparation of thulium atoms using sideband cooling of the spectrally narrow 506.2-nm transition.Ensembles of atoms in the initial states of clock transitions in the ground vibrational sublevel of the optical lattice have been attained.
We review the current research on precision spectroscopy and quantum optics applications of laser-cooled lanthanides. We discuss the specific electronic structure of hollow atoms, which determine prospects for application in optical frequency standards and in quantum simulators based on spin interactions in optical lattices. Using the example of the thulium atom, we describe the specifics of laser cooling, optical lattice trapping techniques, and clock transition spectroscopy using spectrally narrow lasers.
The deterministic excitation of thulium atoms from the ground vibrational state of the optical lattice potential to the first and second vibrational levels with efficiencies of 40 and 24%, respectively, has been demonstrated. The purity of the prepared vibrational states is at least 93 and 95% in the former and latter cases, respectively, and is limited by both the purity of the initial state and the non-resonant excitation of the clock transition carrier frequency. The obtained high efficiency and quality of the preparation of atoms in a given vibrational level make it possible to characterize and control the frequency shift of the clock transition due to the interaction of thulium atoms with the field of the optical lattice, which is necessary to achieve an uncertainty of 10–17 for the thulium optical clock.
We propose to use the magnetic-dipole transition at coupling two ground state fine-structure components of thulium (Tm), as a 'clock transition' in optical clocks. We have demonstrated first stage laser cooling of Tm atoms down to a temperature of 25 K using a strong transition at and we have also shown preliminary results for second stage cooling using a weaker transition at (natural linewidth γ G = 350 kHz). Laser cooled atoms have been trapped in an optical dipole trap and in a 1D optical lattice operating near 532 nm.
Clock transition at 1.14μm1.14 \mu \mathrm{m}1.14μm in neutral thulium is a promising candidate for compact and robust transportable optical clock due to its extremely low sensitivity to external electric and magnetic fields. Cold Tm atoms are now used in optical lattice clocks, quantum simulators and for the study of Bose-Einstein condensation and cold collision physics. In this work, we discuss experimentally measured absolute frequencies of the two transitions at 410.6 nm and 530.7 nm, used for laser cooling of thulium atoms, transition at 418.8 nm used for optical pumping and clock transition at 1140 nm. Using accurate laser spectroscopy in an ensemble of cold thulium atoms, we measured frequencies of these transitions using an optical frequency comb, which was referenced to an active hydrogen maser. Transition frequencies were measured with an uncertainty at one tenth of their natural linewidth, which is sufficient for cooling and pumping of thulium atoms. The uncertainty of the clock transition frequency is 30 Hz, which was limited by the maser frequency calibration with GNSS. Our results can find application in existing experiments with cold thulium atoms and especially in new projects.
Abstract This paper presents a detailed analysis of the effect of the optical lattice field on clock transition spectroscopy, as exemplified by thulium atoms. We consider the applicability of the sifting of atoms in an optical lattice by ramping down the power of the laser light that produces it. This method allows the number of filled vibrational sublevels to be reduced down to a single vibrational state, without changing the inner state of the atoms. The effectiveness of the method is illustrated by the example of the spectroscopy of a clock transition in thulium atoms in the resolved sideband regime.
Summary form only given. Laser cooled atoms play a critical role in modern designs of frequency standards such as atomic fountains. Recently, an elegant and efficient method of two-dimensional cooling to the vibrational ground state of a far-off resonance optical lattice has been demonstrated. This method is a variant of Raman sideband cooling based on the Raman transitions between the vibrational manifolds of adjacent Zeeman substates. A static magnetic field is used to tune the Zeeman levels so that Raman resonance occurs on the red sideband and results in cooling. Two circularly polarized fields are used to recycle the atoms for repetitive Raman cooling. Unfortunately, a direct application of this scheme to frequency standards meets with several difficulties. Stimulated by these concepts and results, we propose a new variant of transverse sideband cooling, where these problems are avoided, while still maintaining most of the attractive features. The field configuration used for the optical lattice consists of three linearly polarized beams having equal amplitudes and propagating in the xy plane with angles of 2/spl pi//3 between each other. The polarization vectors of these beams are tilted through a small angle with respect to the z-axis. All the beams have the same frequency far-detuned to the red of the D/sub 2/ resonance line. Raman transitions between vibrational levels of adjacent magnetic substates are induced by the small in-plane component of the field. Two other important requirements for Raman sideband cooling are a uniform energy shift of the magnetic sublevels and optical pumping.