Measurement of the Hyperfine Structure and Isotope Shifts of the 3s23p2 3P2 to 3s3p3 3Do3 Transition in Silicon

TL;DR

This study precisely measured the hyperfine structure and isotope shifts of a silicon transition, providing new data crucial for quantum computing applications involving radioactive silicon isotopes.

Contribution

First measurement of hyperfine constants and isotope shifts for the silicon 3s23p2 3P2 to 3s3p3 3Do3 transition using laser induced fluorescence.

Findings

Hyperfine A constants determined for 29Si and 30Si.

Isotope shifts measured with two orders of magnitude accuracy improvement.

Predictions made for hyperfine structure of radioactive 31Si.

Abstract

The hyperfine structure and isotope shifts of the 3s23p2 3P2 to 3s3p3 3Do3 transition in silicon have been measured. The transition at 221.7 nm was studied by laser induced fluorescence in an atomic Si beam. For 29Si, the hyperfine A constant for the 3s23p2 3P2 level was determined to be -160.1+-1.3 MHz (1 sigma error), and the A constant for the 3s3p3 3Do3 level is -532.9+-0.6 MHz. This is the first time that these constants were measured. The isotope shifts (relative to the abundant isotope 28Si) of the transition were determined to be 1753.3+-1.1 MHz for 29Si and 3359.9+-0.6 MHz for 30Si. This is an improvement by about two orders of magnitude over a previous measurement. From these results we are able to predict the hyperfine structure and isotope shift of the radioactive 31Si atom, which is of interest in building a scalable quantum computer.