Comparative study of laser-induced metastability-exchange optical pumping of He3 atoms through 23S1-33PJ transition at 389nm with 23S1-23PJ transition at 1083nm

hingo Maeda, MEMBER SPIE utaka Tabata, MEMBER SPIE iroki Yamada iroshi Kumagai, MEMBER SPIE saka City University raduate School of Engineering -3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku saka-shi, Osaka 558-8585, Japan -mail: kumagai@a-phys.eng.osaka-cu.ac.jp Abstract. We developed a metastability-exchange optical pumping technique for metastable triplet helium He atoms utilizing the 2S1-3PJ transition at 389 nm with radiation generated by a frequencydoubled cw Ti:Sapphire laser and compared the results with our results obtained utilizing the 2S1-2PJ transition at 1083 nm with a diode laser. We optically measured the nuclear polarization of He in the hollow cathode discharge cell by monitoring the absorption of a weak longitudinal probe laser at 1083 nm. This provided, for the first time, nuclear polarization utilizing the 2S1-3PJ transition at 389 nm. © 2010 Society of PhotoOptical Instrumentation Engineers. DOI: 10.1117/1.3484945