TY - JOUR

T1 - Two Step Excitation in Hot Atomic Sodium Vapor

AU - Docters, Bernd

AU - Wrachtrup, Jörg

AU - Gerhardt, Ilja

N1 - Funding information: Helmut Kammerlander is highly acknowledged for the production of high quality sodium vapor cells. Christian Veit, Dr. Harald Kübler, and Dr. Robert Löw from the 5th Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart are acknowledged for fruitful discussions. We further acknowledge discussions with Dr. Kevin Weatherill, Dr. Charles Adams, Nikola Šibali?, Pascal Naubereit, and Dr. Klaus Wendt. Cameron Herberts and Dr. Andrew Horsley are acknowledged for proof-reading the manuscript. We acknowledge the funding from the MPG, the SFB project CO.CO.MAT/TR21, the BMBF, the project Q.COM, and SQUTEC.

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - A two step excitation scheme in hot atomic sodium vapor is experimentally investigated. The observed effects reflect a coupling between the 3S, 3P and the 3D states. We present the relative dependence on detuning of the two utilized lasers around lambda=589nm and 819nm. Unlike expected, we achieve a higher detuning dependence of the probe and the coupling laser by a factor of approximately three. The presented work aimed for a Rydberg excitation and quantum light storage. Such schemes are usually implemented with a red laser on the D-line transition and a coupling laser of shorter (typically blue) wavelength. Due to the fact that higher P-Rydberg states are approximately two times higher in energy than the 3D state, a two photon transition from the atomic excited 3P state to a Rydberg P state is feasible. This might circumvent laser frequency doubling whereby only two lasers might mediate a three photon process. The scheme of adding three k-vectors allows for electromagnetically induced transparency experiments in which the resulting k-vector can be effectively reduced to zero. By measurements utilizing electric fields and an analysis of the emission spectrum of the atomic vapor, we can exclude the excitation of the P-P two photon transition.

AB - A two step excitation scheme in hot atomic sodium vapor is experimentally investigated. The observed effects reflect a coupling between the 3S, 3P and the 3D states. We present the relative dependence on detuning of the two utilized lasers around lambda=589nm and 819nm. Unlike expected, we achieve a higher detuning dependence of the probe and the coupling laser by a factor of approximately three. The presented work aimed for a Rydberg excitation and quantum light storage. Such schemes are usually implemented with a red laser on the D-line transition and a coupling laser of shorter (typically blue) wavelength. Due to the fact that higher P-Rydberg states are approximately two times higher in energy than the 3D state, a two photon transition from the atomic excited 3P state to a Rydberg P state is feasible. This might circumvent laser frequency doubling whereby only two lasers might mediate a three photon process. The scheme of adding three k-vectors allows for electromagnetically induced transparency experiments in which the resulting k-vector can be effectively reduced to zero. By measurements utilizing electric fields and an analysis of the emission spectrum of the atomic vapor, we can exclude the excitation of the P-P two photon transition.

KW - Sodium Vapor

KW - Atomic Spectroscopy

KW - Ladder Scheme

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029598136&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-017-12089-w

DO - 10.1038/s41598-017-12089-w

M3 - Article

VL - 7

SP - 11760

JO - Scientific reports

JF - Scientific reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 11760

ER -