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Optical excitation and trapping of <sup>81</sup>Kr

ORAL

Abstract

We have realized optical excitation, trapping and detection of the radioisotope 81Kr with an isotopic abundance of 0.9 ppt. The 124 nm light needed for the production of metastable atoms is generated by a resonant discharge lamp. Photon transport through the optically thick krypton gas inside the lamp is simulated and optimized to enhance both brightness and resonance. We achieve a state-of-the-art 81Kr loading rate of 1800 atoms/h, which can be further scaled up by adding more lamps. The all-optical approach overcomes the limitations on precision and sample size of radiokrypton dating, enabling new applications in the earth sciences, particularly for dating of polar ice cores.

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Publication: J. S. Wang, F. Ritterbusch, X.-Z. Dong, C. Gao, H. Li, W. Jiang, S.-Y. Liu, Z.-T. Lu, W.-H. Wang, G.-M. Yang, Y.-S. Zhang, Z.-Y. Zhang, Optical excitation and trapping of Kr81, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 023021 (2021).

Presenters

  • Jie S Wang

    University of Science and Technology of China

Authors

  • Jie S Wang

    University of Science and Technology of China

  • Florian Ritterbusch

    University of Science and Technology of China, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

  • Zheng-Tian Lu

    University of Science and Technology of China, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

  • Wei jiang

    University of Science and Technology of China, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

  • Guo-Min Yang

    University of Science and Technology of China