Description
Superradiant lasers are suitable as light sources with an ultranarrow linewidth. Superradiant emission can exhibit a linewidth, which is narrower than the natural decay on the same transition [1]. Like conventional lasers, superradiant lasers usually incorporate a cavity to mitigate the atom-light interaction. In the conventional case the emission frequency is strongly dependent on the cavity and therefore sensitive to mechanical perturbations. However, for superradiant lasers operating in the bad-cavity regime, this dependance is highly suppressed [2]. This makes superradiant Lasers operating on ultranarrow transitions, as the alkaline-earth metal clock transitions, ideal candidates for oscillators of next generation atomic clocks.
Currently, our experiment loads cold calcium-40 atoms from a magneto optical trap into a one-dimensional optical lattice prepared inside a cavity. By incoherent population of the metastable triplet state, pulsed superradiant emission on the intercombination line was realized. Due to the incoherent preparation of the atomic sample, it was also possible to show the spontaneous nature of the superradiant pulses and measure a delay distribution [3].
At present, the setup is being extended by an incoherent repumping mechanism, which will allow limited time continuous wave operation.
[1] Meiser, Dominic, et al. "Prospects for a millihertz-linewidth laser." Physical Review Letters 102.16 (2009): 163601.
[2] Norcia, Matthew A., and James K. Thompson. "Cold-strontium laser in the superradiant crossover regime." Physical Review X 6.1 (2016): 011025.
[3] Laske, Torben, Hannes Winter, and Andreas Hemmerich. "Pulse delay time statistics in a superradiant laser with calcium atoms." Physical Review Letters 123.10 (2019): 103601.
| Presenter name | David C. Nak |
|---|---|
| How will you attend ICAP-27? | I am planning on in-person attendance |
