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Advances in Optical Thin Films

Antireflection coatings for an ultra-high vacuum quartz cell developed for quantum computing experiments

Ulrike Schulz, Friedrich Rickelt, Nancy Gratzke, L. Von Schell, Anne Gärtner, Astrid Bingel, Sven Schröder

Published Jun 17, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The paper discusses requirements and solutions for antireflection coatings applicable for a fused silica cell which is attended to manipulate Rydberg atoms as qubits. Multiple laser beams at various wavelengths and light incidence angles pass the different window areas of the cell. AR-coatings were designed and deposited on the window areas to receive an optimal solution for each of the lasers. Some of the coatings optimized for the internal surfaces of the cell contain nanostructured layers as an option to improve the polarization properties at higher light incidence angles. Cleaning, handling and outgassing of these layers was investigated in particular.

DOI
10.1117/12.3016941

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The paper discusses requirements and solutions for antireflection coatings applicable for a fused silica cell which is attended to manipulate Rydberg atoms as qubits. Multiple laser beams at various wavelengths and light incidence angles pass the different window areas of the cell. AR-coatings were designed and deposited on the window areas to receive an optimal solution for each of the lasers. Some of the coatings optimized for the internal surfaces of the cell contain nanostructured layers as an option to improve the polarization properties at higher light incidence angles. Cleaning, handling and outgassing of these layers was investigated in particular.
We report on an ultra-low birefringence dodecagonal glass cell for ultra-high vacuum applications. The epoxy-bonded trapezoidal windows of the cell are made of SF57 glass, which exhibits a very low stress-induced birefringence. We characterize the birefringence Δn of each window with the cell under vacuum conditions, obtaining values around 10(-8). After baking the cell at 150 °C, we reach a pressure below 10(-10) mbar. In addition, each window is antireflection coated on both sides, which is highly desirable for quantum optics experiments and precision measurements.
Antirelaxation coatings (ARC) are used in optical cells containing alkali metal vapor to reduce the depolarization of alkali atoms after collisions with the cell walls. The long-lived ground state polarization is a basis for development of atomic clocks, magnetometers, quantum memory, slow light experiments, precision measurements of fundamental symmetries etc. In this work, a simple method for measuring the number of collisions of the alkali atoms with the cell walls without atomic spin randomization (Nasyrov et al., Proc. SPIE (2015)) was applied to characterize the AR properties of two PDMS coatings prepared from different solutions in ether (PDMS 2% and PDMS 5%). We observed influence of the light-induced atomic desorption (LIAD) on the AR properties of coatings.
We realize anti-reflection (AR) coatings for optical excitation and fluorescence measurements of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers in bulk diamond by depositing quarter-wavelength thick silica layers on the diamond surface. These AR coatings improve NV-diamond optical measurements by reducing optical reflection at the diamond-air interface from ≈17% to ≈2%, which allows more effective NV optical excitation and more efficient detection of NV fluorescence. We also show that diamond AR coatings eliminate standing-wave interference patterns of excitation laser intensity within bulk diamond, and thereby greatly reduce spatial variations in NV fluorescence, which can degrade spatially resolved magnetic field sensing using NV centers.
We report on the expressed atomic spin-polarization protection properties of thin layers of Octadecylamine capped gold-nanoparticles applied to the inner surface of an alkali metal vapor cell. The work aims to reveal the potential of using appropriately functionalized gold nanoparticles as a novel approach to forming efficient coatings on the inner surface of vacuum cells for atomic spectroscopy. The performed layer characterization uses parameters of electromagnetically induced transparency/absorption resonances observed in the Hanle configuration. We show at the Rb D2 absorption line that cells with such a coating provide conditions for achieving high-contrast and narrow, bright, and dark resonances, comparable to those reported by others for Octadecyltrichlorosilane coatings. Using visualization software for structural analysis, we represent the possible interaction scenarios between the alkali atoms and the surface building blocks. We demonstrate and discuss the main structural and functional differences introduced by covering the cell surface with passivated nanoparticles instead of directly using molecules to form monolayers. Having gold-nanoparticles in the coating allows preserving at the same time the earlier discovered advantage for high-speed control over the Rb vapor density by light-induced desorption of atoms. That enables significant problem-solving in atomic clocks and magnetometers and eases their considerable miniaturization.
We describe a method for characterizing self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in terms of their performance as antirelaxation wall coatings for alkali atom vapor cells. A combination of initial surface analysis and subsequent laser spectroscopy is used to provide insight into the quality of the coating, as well as its performance under the exposure to alkalis as it occurs, for example, when used in applications such as atomic magnetometers or clocks. Fused silica plates coated with octadecyltrichlorosilane SAMs were used to make cubic R87b gas cells. The surface was characterized by x-ray diffraction, contact angle measurements, and atomic force microscopy. Measurements of hyperfine resonance linewidths and frequency shifts show that the rubidium vapor atoms collide up to 40 times with the walls of the cells before their coherence relaxes and their adsorption energy is around 0.065 eV. Chemical analysis of the cell indicates some weak reactions between the coating and the rubidium atoms.
Quantum sensing has become a rapidly growing research within the area of sensor, which can break through the limits of traditional physical sensing and make sensing accuracy to the nanometer scale. Meanwhile nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in bulk diamond as a sensor has varieties of applications because of its excellent characteristics. However, there are large optical reflection and low fluorescence collection efficiency at the diamond-air interface because of the large refractive index gap between diamond and air, thereby reducing the sensing sensitivity. In this work, we report a multi-layer anti-reflection coating and fabrication on the surface of diamond with genetic algorithm to solve optimization value of the average reflectance Rave in the wavelength range of 600-800 nm. And we fabricate SiO2-Si3N4double-layer anti-reflection coating on diamond substrate by plasma chemical vapor deposition. Experiment results show that with an anti-reflection coating, the fluorescence collection efficiency is significantly improved, and the average transmittance in the wavelength range of 600-800 nm is increased from 82.8% to 96.7%.