Doppler cooling of calcium ions using a dipole-forbidden optical transition

Richard J. Hendricks (1) , Jens L. Sørensen (1) , Caroline Champenois (2) , Martina Knoop (2) , Michael Drewsen (1)

1 QUANTOP - Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics
2 PIIM - Physique des interactions ioniques et moléculaires

Doppler cooling of calcium ions has been experimentally demonstrated using the S1/2→D5/2 dipole-forbidden transition. Scattering forces and fluorescence levels a factor of 5 smaller than for the usual Doppler cooling on the dipole-allowed S1/2→P1/2 transition have been achieved. Since the light scattered from the ions can be monitored at (violet) wavelengths that are very different from the excitation wavelengths, single ions can be detected with an essentially zero background level. This, as well as other features of the cooling scheme, can be extremely valuable for ion-trap-based quantum-information processing.

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]

Richard J. Hendricks, Jens L. Sørensen, Caroline Champenois, Martina Knoop, Michael Drewsen. Doppler cooling of calcium ions using a dipole-forbidden optical transition. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2008, 77 (2), pp.021401(R). ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.77.021401⟩. ⟨hal-00979372⟩