Spectral filtering of dual lasers with a high-finesse length-tunable cavity for rubidium atom Rydberg excitation*

We propose and demonstrate an alternative method for spectral filtering and frequency stabilization of both 780-nm and 960-nm lasers using a high-finesse length-tunable cavity (HFLTC). Firstly, the length of HFLTC is stabilized to a commercial frequency reference. Then, the two lasers are locked to this HFLTC using the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) method which can narrow the linewidths and stabilize the frequencies of both lasers simultaneously. Finally, the transmitted lasers of HFLTC with each power up to about 100 mu W, which act as seed lasers, are amplified using the injection locking method for single-atom Rydberg excitation. The linewidths of obtained lasers are narrowed to be less than 1 kHz, meanwhile the obtained lasers' phase noise around 750 kHz are suppressed about 30 dB. With the spectrally filtered lasers, we demonstrate a Rabi oscillation between the ground state and Rydberg state of single-atoms in an optical trap tweezer with a decay time of (67 +/- 37) mu s, which is almost not affected by laser phase noise. We found that the maximum short-term laser frequency fluctuation of a single excitation lasers is at similar to 3.3 kHz and the maximum long-term laser frequency drift of a single laser is similar to 46 kHz during one month. Our work develops a stable and repeatable method to provide multiple laser sources of ultra-low phase noise, narrow linewidth, and excellent frequency stability, which is essential for high precision atomic experiments, such as neutral atom quantum computing, quantum simulation, quantum metrology, and so on.

Automated summary

An alternative method for spectral filtering and frequency stabilization of 780-nm and 960-nm lasers using a high-finesse length-tunable cavity (HFLTC) is proposed and demonstrated. The obtained lasers show ultra-low phase noise and narrow linewidth, which are essential for high precision atomic experiments.