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Updated: Jul 20, 2026

20 mJ, 1 ps Yb:YAG Thin-disk Regenerative Amplifier
Published on: July 12, 2017
Measurement of the hyperfine quenching rate of the clock transition in 171YB
C-Y Xu1, J Singh2, J C Zappala1
1Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA and Department of Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Abstract:
We report the first experimental determination of the hyperfine quenching rate of the 6s(2) (1)S(0)(F = 1/2) - 6s6p (3)P(0)(F = 1/2) transition in (171)Yb with nuclear spin I = 1/2. This rate determines the natural linewidth and the Rabi frequency of the clock transition of a Yb optical frequency standard. Our technique involves spectrally resolved fluorescence decay measurements of the lowest lying (3)P(0,1) levels of neutral Yb atoms embedded in a solid Ne matrix. The solid Ne provides a simple way to trap a large number of atoms as well as an efficient mechanism for populating (3)P(0). The decay rates in solid Ne are modified by medium effects including the index-of-refraction dependence. We find the (3)P(0) hyperfine quenching rate to be (4.42 ± 0.35) × 10(-2) s(-1) for free (171)Yb, which agrees with recent ab initio calculations.
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