English

Doppler-free frequency modulation spectroscopy of atomic erbium in a hollow cathode discharge cell

Atomic Physics 2011-09-05 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

The erbium atomic system is a promising candidate for an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms with a non-vanishing orbital angular momentum (L0L \neq 0) of the electronic ground state. In this paper we report on the frequency stabilization of a blue external cavity diode laser system on the 400.91 nmnm laser cooling transition of atomic erbium. Doppler-free saturation spectroscopy is applied within a hollow cathode discharge tube to the corresponding electronic transition of several of the erbium isotopes. Using the technique of frequency modulation spectroscopy, a zero-crossing error signal is produced to lock the diode laser frequency on the atomic erbium resonance. The latter is taken as a reference laser to which a second main laser system, used for laser cooling of atomic erbium, is frequency stabilized.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1109.0434,
  title  = {Doppler-free frequency modulation spectroscopy of atomic erbium in a hollow cathode discharge cell},
  author = {Henning Brammer and Jens Ulitzsch and Riad Bourouis and Martin Weitz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.0434},
  year   = {2011}
}