Realization of a watt-level 319-nm single-frequency CW ultraviolet laser and its application in single-photon Rydberg excitation of cesium atoms

In order to meet the demand for single-photon Rydberg excitation of cesium atoms in the field of atomic physics, we investigated the key technolgies of single-frequency continuous wave(CW) tunable ultraviolet(UV) laser at 318.6 nm. Combining the fiber lasers, fiber amplifiers and the nonlinear crystals, we achieved 318.6 nm UV laser over 2 Watt output with cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation following the sum-frequency generation of two infrared lasers at 1 560.5 nm and 1 076.9 nm in PPLN crystal. The typical root-mean-square fluctuation of UV laser power was less than 0.87% within 30 minutes. The electronic side-band locking scheme based on a temperature controlled hyper-fine ultra-stable ultra-low-expansion cavity placed in an ultra-high vacuum chamber was used to achieve the continuously tuning of UV laser in a wide range while still keeping it locked. The continuously tunable range was larger than 4 GHz and the residual frequency fluctuation of UV laser was about 16 kHz. We employed this high-power single-frequency continuously tunable UV laser system for the direct 6S_1/2→nP_3/2(n=70-100) Rydberg excitation of cesium atoms with atomic vapor cells in experiments. After that, relevant theoretical analysis and research have been done. With a magneto-optical trapped cesium atomic ensemble, single-photon Rydberg excitation using the UV laser system was achieved with a pure optical detection scheme.