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Direct excitation of the forbidden clock transition in neutral 174Yb atoms confined to an optical lattice

Zeb W. Barber·Chad W. Hoyt·Chris W. Oates·Leo Hollberg·Aleksei V. Taichenachev·Valera I. Yudin
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Abstract

We report direct single-laser excitation of the strictly forbidden (6s^2)^1S_0 -(6s6p)^3P_0 clock transition in the even 174Yb isotope confined to a 1D optical lattice. A small (~1.2 mT) static magnetic field was used to induce a nonzero electric dipole transition probability between the clock states at 578.42 nm. Narrow resonance linewidths of 20 Hz (FHWM) with high contrast were observed, demonstrating a record neutral-atom resonance quality factor of 2.6x10^13. The previously unknown ac Stark shift-canceling (magic) wavelength was determined to be 759.35+/-0.02 nm. This method for using the metrologically superior even isotope can be easily implemented in current Yb and Sr lattice clocks, and can create new clock possibilities in other alkaline earth-like atoms such as Mg and Ca.

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Zeb W. Barber, Chad W. Hoyt, Chris W. Oates, Leo Hollberg, Aleksei V. Taichenachev, Valera I. Yudin. 2006-03-02. Direct excitation of the forbidden clock transition in neutral 174Yb atoms confined to an optical lattice. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.96.083002

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