Collimated blue and infrared beams generated by two-photon excitation in Rb vapor.

Utilizing two-photon excitation in hot Rb vapor we demonstrate the generation of collimated optical fields at 420 and 1324 nm. Input laser beams at 780 and 776 nm enter a heated Rb vapor cell collinear and circularly polarized, driving Rb atoms to the 5D(5/2) state. Under phase-matching conditions coherence among the 5S(1/2)→5P(3/2)→5D(5/2)→6P(3/2) transitions produces a blue (420 nm) beam by four-wave mixing. We also observe a forward and backward propagating IR (1324 nm) beam, due to cascading decays through the 6S(1/2)→5(1/2) states. Power saturation of the generated beams is investigated by scaling the input powers to greater than 200 mW, resulting in a coherent blue beam of 9.1 mW power, almost an order of magnitude larger than previously achieved. We measure the dependences of both beams in relation to the Rb density, the frequency detuning between Rb ground-state hyperfine levels, and the input laser intensities.

Temperature dependence of Rb 5P fine-structure transfer induced by 4He collisions.

Employing ultrafast laser excitation and time-correlated single-photon counting, we have measured the fine-structure transfer between Rb 5P states induced by collisions with 4He buffer gas at temperatures up to 150 °C. The temperature dependence of the binary cross section agrees with earlier measurements. Our data show that the temperature dependence of the three-body rate is about the same as that of the binary rate. The three-body rate can be described as arising from the reduction of the rubidium fine-structure splitting due to nearby helium atoms.

Enhancement of Rb fine-structure transfer in 4He due to three-body collisions.

Using ultrafast laser excitation and time-correlated single-photon counting techniques, we have measured the collisional mixing rates between the rubidium 5(2)P fine-structure levels in the presence of (4)He gas. A nonlinear dependence of the mixing rate with (4)He density is observed. We find Rb fine-structure transfer is primarily due to binary collisions at (4)He densities of < or = 10(19) cm(-3), while at greater densities, three-body collisions become significant. We determine a three-body collisional transfer rate coefficient (5(2)P(3/2) --> 5(2)P(1/2)) of 1.25(9)x10(-32) cm(6)/s at 22 degrees C.

Collinear laser spectroscopy of francium using online rubidium vapor neutralization and amplitude modulated lasers.

Performing collinear laser spectroscopy on low intensity radioactive beams requires sensitive detection techniques. We explain our apparatus to detect atomic resonances in neutralized (208-210)Fr ion beams at beam energies of 5 keV and intensities of 10(5) s(-1). Efficient neutralization (> or = 80%) is accomplished by passing the beam through a dense Rb vapor. Increased detection efficiency is achieved by amplitude modulating the exciting laser to decrease the scattered light background, allowing fluorescence detection only when the laser is near its minimum in the modulation cycle. Using this technique in a collinear geometry we achieve a background reduction by a factor of 180 and a signal-to-noise increase of 2.2, with the lifetime of the atomic state playing a role in the efficiency of this process. Such laser modulation will also produce sidebands on the atomic spectra which we illustrate.