2020/06/22 by Valdis Blūms, Blums, Valdis, Jordan Scarabel +19
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Laser Design and Applications #Optics (physics.optics)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2006.12012
openalex publication_date 2020/06/22 · openalex created_date 2020/06/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Isotope selective optical excitation of atoms is important for experiments with neutral atoms, metrology, and work with trapped ions, including quantum information processing. Polarization-enhanced absorption spectroscopy is used to frequency stabilise a tunable external cavity laser diode system at 398.9 nm for isotope selective photoionization of neutral Yb atoms. This spectroscopy technique is used to measure isotope resolved dispersive features from transitions within a see through configuration Ytterbium hollow-cathode discharge lamp. This Doppler-free dichroic polarization spectroscopy is realised by retro-reflecting a laser beam through the discharge and analysing the polarization dependent absorption with balanced detection. The spectroscopy signal is recovered using lock-in detection of frequency modulation induced by current modulation of the external cavity laser diode. Here, we show the use of polarization-enhanced absorption spectroscopy for isotope selectively loading of 171Yb+, 172Yb+, or 174Yb+ ions into an RF Paul trap.