Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime
Today’s narrowest linewidth lasers are limited by mirror motion in the reference optical resonator used to stabilize the laser’s frequency. Recent proposals suggest that superradiant lasers based on narrow dipole-forbidden transitions in cold alkaline earth atoms could offer a way around this limita...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Physical Society
2016-03-01
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| Series: | Physical Review X |
| Online Access: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011025 |
| _version_ | 1831581227709104128 |
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| author | Matthew A. Norcia James K. Thompson |
| author_facet | Matthew A. Norcia James K. Thompson |
| author_sort | Matthew A. Norcia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Today’s narrowest linewidth lasers are limited by mirror motion in the reference optical resonator used to stabilize the laser’s frequency. Recent proposals suggest that superradiant lasers based on narrow dipole-forbidden transitions in cold alkaline earth atoms could offer a way around this limitation. Such lasers operating on transitions with linewidth of order mHz are predicted to achieve output spectra orders of magnitude narrower than any currently existing laser. As a step towards this goal, we demonstrate and study a laser based on the 7.5-kHz linewidth dipole-forbidden ^{3}P_{1} to ^{1}S_{0} transition in laser-cooled and tightly confined ^{88}Sr. We can operate this laser in the bad-cavity or superradiant regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the atoms, or continuously tune to the more conventional good-cavity regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the light field. We show that the cold-atom gain medium can be repumped to achieve quasi-steady-state lasing. We also demonstrate up to an order of magnitude suppression in the sensitivity of laser frequency to changes in cavity length, verifying a key feature of the proposed narrow linewidth lasers. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T19:30:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-fa4e86f30c1b4c06b2fbbdfa44193184 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2160-3308 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T19:30:59Z |
| publishDate | 2016-03-01 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Physical Review X |
| spelling | doaj.art-fa4e86f30c1b4c06b2fbbdfa441931842022-12-21T21:35:15ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review X2160-33082016-03-016101102510.1103/PhysRevX.6.011025Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover RegimeMatthew A. NorciaJames K. ThompsonToday’s narrowest linewidth lasers are limited by mirror motion in the reference optical resonator used to stabilize the laser’s frequency. Recent proposals suggest that superradiant lasers based on narrow dipole-forbidden transitions in cold alkaline earth atoms could offer a way around this limitation. Such lasers operating on transitions with linewidth of order mHz are predicted to achieve output spectra orders of magnitude narrower than any currently existing laser. As a step towards this goal, we demonstrate and study a laser based on the 7.5-kHz linewidth dipole-forbidden ^{3}P_{1} to ^{1}S_{0} transition in laser-cooled and tightly confined ^{88}Sr. We can operate this laser in the bad-cavity or superradiant regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the atoms, or continuously tune to the more conventional good-cavity regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the light field. We show that the cold-atom gain medium can be repumped to achieve quasi-steady-state lasing. We also demonstrate up to an order of magnitude suppression in the sensitivity of laser frequency to changes in cavity length, verifying a key feature of the proposed narrow linewidth lasers.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011025 |
| spellingShingle | Matthew A. Norcia James K. Thompson Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime Physical Review X |
| title | Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime |
| title_full | Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime |
| title_fullStr | Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime |
| title_short | Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime |
| title_sort | cold strontium laser in the superradiant crossover regime |
| url | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011025 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT matthewanorcia coldstrontiumlaserinthesuperradiantcrossoverregime AT jameskthompson coldstrontiumlaserinthesuperradiantcrossoverregime |