Nanosecond laser spectrometer for the ultraviolet spectral regime

• Subject Area: Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: Funded in 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422472083

This proposal asks for the purchase of a laser spectrometer consisting of a high-power nanosecond laser system as the main device, along with additional equipment, for the spectroscopy of dense atomic and molecular gases in the ultraviolet spectral regime. The device is intended as a universally usable part of the basic equipment of my Bonn working group, and should allow to extend several lines of research carried out so far in the visible spectral range into the vacuum ultraviolet spectral regime. The proposed laser spectrometer will initially be used in experiments aimed at generating a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons in the vacuum-ultraviolet spectral regime, thus enabling a novel source of coherent light in a spectral range in which conventional laser sources, due to the required inversion of the active medium, are barely or even not available at all. The laser spectrometer will also provide the basis for experiments on collision-induced laser cooling of "macroscopic" samples of dense molecular gases. It is to be expected that the large tuning range far into the ultraviolet spectral regime and the high power of the proposed optical source combined with the good spectral resolution of the spectrometer will be crucial to the success of these as well as future research projects.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Nanosekunden-Laserspektrometer für den ultravioletten Spektralbereich
• Instrumentation Group: 5700 Festkörper-Laser
• Applicant Institution: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• Leader: Professor Dr. Martin Weitz