Nanolithography with metastable helium atoms in a high-power standing-wave light field

We have created periodic nanoscale structures in a gold substrate with a lithography process using metastable triplet helium atoms that damage a hydrofobic resist layer on top of the substrate. A beam of metastable helium atoms is transversely cooled and guided through an intense standing-wave light field. Compared to commonly used low-power optical masks, a high-power light field (saturation parameter of 10E7) increases the confinement of the atoms in the standing-wave considerably, and makes the alignment of the experimental setup less critical. Due to the high internal energy of the metastable helium atoms (20 eV), a dose of only one atom per resist molecule is required. With an exposure time of only eight minutes, parallel lines with a separation of 542 nm and a width of 100 nm (1/11th of the wavelength used for the optical mask) are created.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Stark manifolds and electric-field-induced avoided level crossings in helium Rydberg states

The linear Stark effect in 1snp 1,3P Rydberg states (n40) of the fundamental two-electron atom helium was studied with the resolution of cw laser spectroscopy. The evolution of the angular-momentum manifolds was followed up to the regime where Stark states originating from different n values interact. Narrow avoided level crossings were detected with high precision. Stark manifolds were also calculated by diagonalization of the complete energy matrix in the presence of an electric field. In these calculations, even at moderate values of the field up to five n values have to be included to accurately reproduce the experimental data. © 1989 The American Physical Society

Numerical simulations on the motion of atoms travelling through a standing-wave light field

The motion of metastable helium atoms travelling through a standing light wave is investigated with a semi-classical numerical model. The results of a calculation including the velocity dependence of the dipole force are compared with those of the commonly used approach, which assumes a conservative dipole force. The comparison is made for two atom guiding regimes that can be used for the production of nanostructure arrays; a low power regime, where the atoms are focused in a standing wave by the dipole force, and a higher power regime, in which the atoms channel along the potential minima of the light field. In the low power regime the differences between the two models are negligible and both models show that, for lithography purposes, pattern widths of 150 nm can be achieved. In the high power channelling regime the conservative force model, predicting 100 nm features, is shown to break down. The model that incorporates velocity dependence, resulting in a structure size of 40 nm, remains valid, as demonstrated by a comparison with quantum Monte-Carlo wavefunction calculations.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Theory of evaporative cooling with energy-dependent elastic scattering cross section and application to metastable helium

The kinetic theory of evaporative cooling developed by Luiten et al. [Phys. Rev. A 53, 381 (1996)] is extended to include the dependence of the elastic scattering cross section on collision energy. We introduce a simple approximation by which the transition range between the low-temperature limit and the unitarity limit is described as well. Applying the modified theory to our measurements on evaporative cooling of metastable helium we find a scattering length |a| = 10(5) nm

Single-longitudinal-mode optical parametric oscillator for spectroscopic applications

500 MHz) in the wavelength range 435 to 2000 ran with energy of 3.5 mJ at a pump energy of 22 mJ. Continuous scanning over 30 to 100 GHz (depending on wavelength) is demonstrated by recording of the resonance line of the Hg atom at 253.7 nm and a vibrational transition of the CO2 molecule at 1528 nm. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America

Precision measurements in helium at 58 nm: Ground state Lamb shift and the 1 S-1 2 P-1 transition isotope shift

A source of narrow bandwidth (<800 MHz) tunable laser radiation at 58.4 nm has been developed and is applied to record the 11S-21P transition in 3He and 4He. From the 4He transition frequency of 171 134.8936(58) cm-1 a fivefold improved ground state Lamb shift of 1.3763(58) cm-1 is deduced, in good agreement with the theoretical value of 1.3755(10) cm-1. The measured 11S-21P transition isotope shift of 263410(7) MHz presents a more than 2 order of magnitude improvement over a previous value and agrees with a theoretical value of 263411.26(11) MHz

Heteronuclear ionizing collisions between laser-cooled metastable helium atoms

We have investigated cold ionizing heteronuclear collisions in dilute mixtures of metastable (2 3S1) 3He and 4He atoms, extending our previous work on the analogous homonuclear collisions [R. J. W. Stas et al., PRA 73, 032713 (2006)]. A simple theoretical model of such collisions enables us to calculate the heteronuclear ionization rate coefficient, for our quasi-unpolarized gas, in the absence of resonant light (T = 1.2 mK): K34(th) = 2.4*10^-10 cm^3/s. This calculation is supported by a measurement of K34 using magneto-optically trapped mixtures containing about 1*10^8 atoms of each species, K34(exp) = 2.5(8)*10^-10 cm^3/s. Theory and experiment show good agreement.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure