Laser frequency stabilization by modulation transfer spectroscopy and balanced detection of molecular iodine for laser cooling of <sup>174</sup>Yb
Álvaro Mitchell Galvão de Melo, Hector Letellier, Apoorva Apoorva, Antoine Glicenstein, Robin Kaiser
Abstract
We report laser frequency stabilization by the combination of modulation transfer spectroscopy and balanced detection of a relatively weak hyperfine transition of the R(158)25-0 line of molecular iodine ( 127 I 2 ), which is used as a new frequency reference for laser trapping and cooling of 174 Yb on the 1 S 0 − 3 P 1 transition. The atomic cloud is characterized by time-of-flight measurements, and an on-resonance optical depth of up to 47 is obtained. We show laser noise reduction and characterize the short-term laser frequency instability by the Allan deviation of the laser fractional frequency. The minimum measured value is 3.9 ×10 −13 at 0.17 s of averaging time.