All-optical production and trapping of metastable noble gas atoms down to the single atom regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an all-optical method to produce and trap metastable noble gas atoms, enabling single atom detection for isotope ratio analysis with improved compactness and reduced contamination.

Contribution

It introduces a novel all-optical approach for producing metastable noble gas atoms and achieves single atom detection in a magneto-optical trap, advancing isotope analysis techniques.

Findings

Successful all-optical excitation of metastable Kr atoms

Single atom detection achieved in a 3D MOT

Enhanced setup compactness and sample purity

Abstract

The determination of isotope ratios of noble gas atoms has many applications e.g. in physics, nuclear arms control, and earth sciences. For several applications, the concentration of specific noble gas isotopes (e.g. Kr and Ar) is so low that single atom detection is highly desirable for a precise determination of the concentration. As an important step in this direction, we demonstrate operation of a krypton Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA) setup based on a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for metastable Kr atoms excited by all-optical means. Compared to other state-of-the-art techniques for preparing metastable noble gas atoms, all-optical production is capable of overcoming limitations regarding minimal probe volume and avoiding cross-contamination of the samples. In addition, it allows for a compact and reliable setup. We identify optimal parameters of our experimental setup by employing the most abundant isotope Kr-84, and demonstrate single atom detection within a 3D MOT.