Modern atomic clocks based on the interrogation of an atomic transitions in the optical regions require multiple lasers at different wavelength for producing atomic ions, trapping and laser cooling of neutral atoms or atomic ions. In order to achieve highest efficiency for laser cooling or any other atomic transition, frequencies of each of the lasers involved need to be stabilized by mitigating its drifts or fluctuations arise due to ambient temperature variation or other kind of perturbations. The present article describes simultaneous frequency stabilization of multiple number of lasers, required for production and laser cooling of ytterbium (¹⁷¹Yb) ions, to a reference transition frequency of rubidium (Rb) atoms. In this technique, a diode laser operating at ~ 780 nm is frequency stabilized to one of the Doppler broadening-free absorption peak of rubidium atoms (⁸⁵Rb) and then used as a reference frequency for calibrating a wavelength meter and subsequent simultaneous frequency stabilization of four lasers operating at different wavelengths.

Narrow bandwidth and high voltage radio frequency (RF) is an essential requirement for stable confinement of ions within a RF trap and helical resonators are commonly used for that purpose. Effective capacitance and inductance of a helical resonator are estimated by measuring resonant frequencies for different external loads. Load capacitance of an ion trap can be estimated from this method and a resonator can be constructed for desired resonant frequency. We demonstrate a very simple method to achieve higher Q-factor of a resonator by optimizing mutual separation between the primary antenna and helical coil. We also formulate a set of analytical equations for calculating overall inductance, resistance, and Q-factor of a loaded helical resonator.

Nearly collimated atomic beam is of interest for a variety of experiments. This article reports a simple way of modifying the atomic beam distribution using a dark wall oven and describes detailed study of outcoming atoms’ spatial distribution. A simple design is obtained by employing the fact that inhomogeneous thermal distribution along a capillary results due to its partial resistive heating. Based on this phenomenon, we have designed a dark wall oven consisting of a reservoir, collimator, and cold absorber at the exit end of atoms, where all three are fabricated out of a single stainless steel capillary. The nearly collimated spatial distribution of the atoms resulting due to the absorber eliminating the atoms diverging above a certain angle is modeled and experimentally verified. A divergence as minimum as 1.2(1)° corresponding to a half angle θ_1/2 = 0.9(1)° is measured at an oven temperature of 250 °C that produces an atomic flux of about 8 × 10⁹ atoms s⁻¹. Total flux as estimated using our measured spatial distribution of atoms matches well with the numerically simulated values of it for the dark wall oven.

We describe an improved laser frequency stabilization technique that overcomes limitation of the conventional Transfer Cavity (TC) method by prohibiting frequency drift of the desired (working) laser arising due to change in differential optical path length of the Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity with respect to the reference laser. Unlike the TC where noise at each stage propagates and cascades to the working laser, in this novel “Loop Stabilized Transfer Cavity (LSTC)” technique, different stages like the reference and working lasers, FP cavity constitute a loop which is stabilized altogether rather than stabilizing the individual component. As a result, frequency of the working laser is restricted from drifting and overall noise is also reduced as compared to that in the TC. Theoretical and experimental results comparing both the techniques are presented here.