Abstract
We have used laser light at the resonance frequency of the 23S1 → 23P2 transition of metastable helium (He*) at λ = 1.083 μm to deflect a supersonic beam by an amount limited by our interaction time. The home-built diode-laser-pumped LNA laser1 provides a few milliwatts of tunable single-frequency light near 1.083 μm. Approximately 0.5 mW of this is formed into a 1 mm × 10 mm horizontally oriented rectangular beam to deflect the atoms. The He* beam is produced by a dc discharge in a supersonic beam of He that is skimmed by a 100-μm-wide vertical slit. Atoms then pass through a differentially pumped chamber and a beam-defining slit, which is 250 μm wide and 20 cm from the skimmer, and then to a 2-m-long beam line. At its end the 2.3-mm-wide atomic beam impinges on a microchannel plate where the He* atoms liberate electrons, which are multiplied and then accelerated to a phosphor screen. The screen is viewed by a television camera whose output goes to a frame grabber in a microcomputer, thus recording the image of the atomic beam.2
© 1991 Optical Society of America
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