Hogan, SD;
Houston, Y;
Wei, B;
(2018)
Laser photoexcitation of Rydberg states in helium with n > 400.
Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
, 51
(14)
, Article 145002. 10.1088/1361-6455/aac8a1.
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Abstract
Helium atoms travelling in pulsed supersonic beams have been photoexcited from the metastable 1s2s 3S1 level to Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers exceeding 400 by resonance-enhanced two-colour two-photon excitation using narrow-bandwidth CW laser radiation. To achieve this, the photoexcitation region was shielded and stray electric fields cancelled using a cubic arrangement of 80 mm × 80 mm copper plates. The excited Rydberg atoms were detected by pulsed electric field ionisation downstream from this photoexcitation region. Comparison of the experimental spectra with the results of calculations indicate that the stray electric fields at the position of Rydberg state photoexcitation were reduced to as low as 160 μV cm–1. Using helium in these experiments minimises temporal changes in the stray fields resulting from surface adsorption. Measurements performed 70 h apart indicate that the rate of change of these fields was on the order of 2 μV cm–1 per h, making beams of metastable helium atoms ideally suited as probes for high precision electrometry in spectroscopy experiments involving less readily available species such as positronium or antihydrogen.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Laser photoexcitation of Rydberg states in helium with n > 400 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1361-6455/aac8a1 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6455/aac8a1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. For further information see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Optics, Physics, Atomic, Molecular & Chemical, Physics, Rydberg states, electric fields, helium, HIGH-RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY, ELECTRIC-FIELDS, ATOMIC-HYDROGEN, PROTON, RESONANCES, BEAM, SIZE |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10052702 |
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