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Absolute transition frequencies and quantum interference in a frequency comb based measurement of the 6,7Li D lines

Published

Author(s)

Craig J. Sansonetti, Clayton Simien, John D. Gillaspy, Joseph N. Tan, Samuel M. Brewer, Roger C. Brown, Saijun Wu, James V. Porto

Abstract

Optical frequencies of the D lines of 6,7Li were measured with a relative accuracy of 5x10-11 using an optical comb synthesizer. Quantum interference in the laser induced fluorescence for the partially-resolved D2 lines was found to produce polarization dependent shifts as large as 1 MHz. Our results resolve large discrepancies among previous experiments and between all experiments and theory. The fine structure splittings for 6Li and 7Li are 10052.837(22) MHz and 10053.435(21) MHz. The splitting isotope shift is 0.599(30) MHz, in reasonable agreement with recent theoretical calculations.
Citation
Physical Review Letters

Keywords

hyperfine structure, isotope shift, laser spectroscopy, lithium, optical frequency comb, precision measurements, quantum interference, wavelengths

Citation

Sansonetti, C. , Simien, C. , Gillaspy, J. , Tan, J. , Brewer, S. , Brown, R. , Wu, S. and Porto, J. (2011), Absolute transition frequencies and quantum interference in a frequency comb based measurement of the 6,7Li D lines, Physical Review Letters (Accessed April 16, 2024)
Created July 6, 2011, Updated February 19, 2017