2,836 research outputs found
A Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime
Recent proposals suggest that lasers based on narrow dipole-forbidden
transitions in cold alkaline earth atoms could achieve linewidths that are
orders of magnitude smaller than linewidths of any existing lasers. Here, we
demonstrate a laser based on the 7.5 kHz linewidth dipole forbidden P
to S transition in laser-cooled and tightly confined Sr. We can
operate this laser in the bad-cavity regime, where coherence is primarily
stored in the atoms, or continuously tune to the more conventional good-cavity
regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the light field. We show that
the cold-atom gain medium can be repumped to achieve quasi steady-state lasing,
and demonstrate up to an order of magnitude suppression in the sensitivity of
laser frequency to changes in cavity length, the primary limitation for the
most frequency stable lasers today.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Noncontact GMR measurements of synthetic spin valves using IR reflection spectroscopy
The magnetorefractive effect has been used in infrared reflection spectroscopy to study the magnetotransport properties of synthetic spin valves. This optical noncontact technique shows excellent correlation with the electrical giant magnetoresistance data
Narrow-line Laser Cooling by Adiabatic Transfer
We propose and demonstrate a novel laser cooling mechanism applicable to
particles with narrow-linewidth optical transitions. By sweeping the frequency
of counter-propagating laser beams in a sawtooth manner, we cause adiabatic
transfer back and forth between the ground state and a long-lived optically
excited state. The time-ordering of these adiabatic transfers is determined by
Doppler shifts, which ensures that the associated photon recoils are in the
opposite direction to the particle's motion. This ultimately leads to a robust
cooling mechanism capable of exerting large forces via a weak transition and
with reduced reliance on spontaneous emission. We present a simple intuitive
model for the resulting frictional force, and directly demonstrate its efficacy
for increasing the total phase-space density of an atomic ensemble. We rely on
both simulation and experimental studies using the 7.5~kHz linewidth S
to P transition in Sr. The reduced reliance on spontaneous
emission may allow this adiabatic sweep method to be a useful tool for cooling
particles that lack closed cycling transitions, such as molecules.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Sulfide mineralization within modern, deep-sea marine sediments and oxygenation of the early Earth
The Earth’s atmosphere and oceans have not always been oxygenated. The exact pathway and timing of the oxygenation of the Earth’s early oceans is poorly constrained, although it appears that oxygenation was essentially complete by the beginning of the Cambrian (545 million years ago). Indeed, the appearance and diversification of the first animals may have been dependent on threshold levels of oxygen. Eventually we intend to use the sulfur isotopic composition of sulfide minerals (iron monosulfides and pyrite) present in sedimentary rocks to reconstruct the oxygenation of Proterozoic oceans, but first must strive to understand sulfide mineral formation in the modern ocean – specifically with reference to certain deep-sea environments.
We examine the sediments of two piston cores collected over the Blake Ridge gas hydrate deposits (offshore southeastern North America) by extracting total sedimentary sulfide using chromium reduction. We use an improved titration procedure to assay for sulfide sulfur concentration that involves addition of an excess amount of potassium iodate/potassium iodide (KIO3/KI) solution in order to completely oxidize dissolved sulfide to elemental sulfur. Our results show that authigenic sulfide sulfur generally increases in concentration downcore from ~0.05 to peak concentrations approaching 0.4 weight per cent sulfur. These results are consistent with localized sulfide production at about 13 meters and rapid sulfide mineral formation there. We will further test the hypothesis by examining d34S values of authigenic sulfide minerals, expecting to see enrichments in d34S where peak sulfide concentrations occur
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