Tunable frequency-stabilization of UV laser using a Hallow-Cathode Lamp of atomic thallium

Abstract

A frequency-stabilized ultraviolet laser system, locked to the thallium resonant transition of 377.5 nm, was demonstrated using a novel bichromatic spectroscopy technique for tuning the zero-crossing laser-lock point. The atomic thallium system is a promising candidate in atomic parity violation and permanent electric dipole moment experiments, and its 377.5 nm 6P1/2->7S1/2 transition is important for thallium laser cooling and trapping experiment. The pressure shift, owing to the high pressure buffer gas of the hollow-cathode lamp, was observed using an atomic beam resonance as reference. Such a shift was corrected by adjusting the peak ratio of the two Doppler-free saturation profiles resulted from two pumping beams with a 130 MHz frequency difference. The resulted frequency stability of the ultraviolet laser is ?0.5 MHz at 0.1 sec integration time. This scheme is compact and versatile for stabilizing UV laser systems, which acquire a sub-MHz stability and frequency tunability.