Excitation of an Electric Octupole Transition by Twisted Light

authored by
R. Lange, N. Huntemann, A. A. Peshkov, A. Surzhykov, E. Peik
Abstract

We study the coherent excitation of the S1/22→F7/22 electric octupole (E3) transition by twisted light modes with a single Yb+171 ion in the dark center of a vortex beam. The intensity distribution of the beam is mapped as a function of the ion's position by measuring the light shift on an auxiliary electric quadrupole transition. In the center of the vortex beam, we observe excitation of the E3 transition with a fivefold reduced light shift in comparison to excitation by plane wave radiation for the same Rabi frequency. We measure the excitation probabilities for Laguerre-Gaussian twisted light modes of first and second order for different polarization patterns at various orientations of the ion quantization axis with respect to the beam propagation vector. We compare the experimental results with theoretical predictions and find good qualitative agreement.

External Organisation(s)
National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB)
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Laboratory for Emerging Nanometrology Braunschweig (LENA)
Type
Article
Journal
Physical review letters
Volume
129
ISSN
0031-9007
Publication date
12.12.2022
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy(all)
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.253901 (Access: Open)