Threshold and frequency properties of a cold ytterbium laser

Abstract

We investigate properties of the lasing action observed on the 1S0--3P1 intercombination transition of ytterbium atoms that are laser-cooled and -trapped inside a high-finesse cavity. The dressing of the atomic states on the 1S0--1P1 transition by the magneto-optical trap (MOT) laser light allows the coupled atom-cavity system to lase, via a two-photon transition, on the same line on which it is pumped. The observation and basic description of this phenomenon was presented earlier by Gothe et al. [Phys. Rev. A 99, 013415 (2019)]. In the current work, we focus on a detailed analysis of the lasing threshold and frequency properties and perform a comparison to our theoretical models.