Narrow-linewidth light source for a coherent
Raman transfer of ultracold molecules
K. Aikawa,1,* J. Kobayashi,2 K. Oasa,1 T. Kishimoto,3 M. Ueda,4,5 and S. Inouye5,61
Department of Applied Physics, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
Institute of Engineering Innovation, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
3
University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu 182-8585, Japan
4
Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
5
JST, ERATO, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
6
Photon Science Center, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan*ka_cypridina@atomtrap.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

2

Abstract: We describe a tunable two-color CW light source sufficient forrealizing a coherent Raman transfer between two molecular states that are
more than 0.5 eV (120 THz) apart. The simultaneous frequency
stabilization of 901 nm and 655 nm light was achieved by locking diodelasers to a single ultralow expansion cavity with dual wavelengths coating.
By utilizing offset-locking and optical phase-locked loop (OPLL), we
ensured a large mode-hop free tuning range (> 2 GHz). The obtained shortterm linewidth (<10 Hz) and the linear drift of frequency (65 mHz/s) wereboth sufficient to eliminate the influence of laser linewidths on theefficiency of coherent Raman transition.
©2011 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (020.1670) Coherent optical effects; (140.2020) Diode lasers; (140.2050) Dye
lasers; (140.3550) Lasers, Raman.

References and links
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643 (2007).
3. J. Alnis, A. Matveev, N. Kolachevsky, Th. Udem, and T. W. Hänsch, “Subhertz linewidth diode lasers bystabilization to vibrationally and thermally compensated ultralow-expansion glass Fabry-Pérot cavities,” Phys.
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5. J. G. Danzl, M. J. Mark, E. Haller, M. Gustavsson, R. Hart, J. Aldegunde, J. M. Hutson, and H.-C. Nägerl, “Anultracold high-density sample of rovibronic ground-state molecules in an optical lattice,” Nat. Phys. 6(4), 265–
270 (2010).
6. K. Aikawa, D. Akamatsu, M. Hayashi, K. Oasa, J. Kobayashi, P. Naidon, T. Kishimoto, M. Ueda, and S. Inouye,“Coherent transfer of photoassociated molecules into the rovibrational ground state,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 105(20),203001 (2010).
7. S. A. Webster, M. Oxborrow, and P. Gill, “Vibration insensitive optical cavity,” Phys. Rev. A 75, 011801(R)(2007).
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1.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14479

Narrow-linewidth lasers have comprised a crucial part of a wide variety of experiments inatomic, molecular, and optical physics, including frequency standards [1,2] and atomic
spectroscopy [3]. Recent advances in manipulating ultracold atoms have opened a new
application of narrow-linewidth lasers in producing ultracold molecules in the lowest
rovibrational level from associated pairs of ultracold atoms via stimulated Raman adiabatic
passage (STIRAP) [4–6]. In these experiments, a narrow-linewidth two-color light sourcewith a large frequency difference plays a key role. The efficiency of Raman transfer isdetermined by the coherence between the two frequencies. Hence, it is necessary to develop ageneral method for producing a mutually coherent, two-color light source with a large
frequency difference corresponding to the binding energy of a molecule (a few hundred THz
for alkali diatomic molecules). In previous studies, two frequencies were stabilized
independently by locking lasers directly to a frequency comb [4], or to multiple cavities
referenced to a single frequency comb [5]. In this letter, we show that a simple laser system
based on a single ultralow expansion (ULE) cavity with dual-wavelength coating provides
both tunability and coherence required for an efficient STIRAP transfer. Narrow linewidth isachieved by optimizing electronic and optical feedback to master lasers, while long term
stability is ensured by operating ULE cavity at zero-expansion temperature. Large mode-hop
free tuning range needed for molecular spectroscopy (over a few GHz) is guaranteed byutilizing optical phase-lock loop to slave lasers. The influence of vibration on the cavity,
which is the only remaining unknown factor, is estimated by measuring the acceleration on
the table. Our results provide a general method for achieving two narrow-linewidth lasers to asingle cavity with moderately high-finesses (6000–10000).
Figure 1 and 2 shows the entire optical setup. The ULE cavity is kept in a vacuum
chamber, which is mounted on a passively stabilized optical table (Minus-K, 250BM-1).
Since our vacuum chamber was based on the design given in Ref [3], we briefly describe ourchamber herein. In our experiments, a temperature stability of 0.1 K near the zero-expansion
temperature is sufficient because the typical two-photon linewidth of our STIRAP
experiments is on the order of 100kHz. We achieved this stability by surrounding the ULE
cavity with two nested heat shields and stabilizing the outer shield with a double stage Peltierelement. The zero-expansion temperature of our ULE cavity was determined to be 6.6 °C bymonitoring the transmission line referenced to the Cs D2 line. The long-term stability waschecked by measurements on the narrow transition of 41K87Rb molecule (X1Σ+–(3)1Σ+; naturallinewidth, 320(30) kHz), which showed a linear drift with a slope of 65(1) mHz/s (Fig. 3).
This drift arises from the aging of the ULE glass and is comparable to previous study [3].
Since this drift is linear over months, it is readily compensated by subtracting it as an
expected offset. Thus, we obtain a long-term stability of better than 100 kHz as shown in Fig.
3.
Vibration isolation is crucial since it directly influences the STIRAP efficiency. We
employed a notched horizontal cavity because a notched cavity has a lower sensitivity tovibration [7]. The cavity was supported at calculated Airy points, and the Minus-K optical
table was surrounded by sound insulation boards including a lead sheet with a width of 0.5
mm (Toho Zinc, P-2) for minimizing the influence of acoustic noise. We measured theacceleration of the optical table by using a seismic accelerometer (Wilcoxon, 731A/P31;
sensitivity, 1 kV/g; noise, 0.03 μg Hz-1/2 at 2 Hz, where g is acceleration of gravity). Figure 4
shows the measured acceleration. Assuming the typical sensitivity of a notched cavity (< 1MHz/g in a horizontal direction and <100 kHz/g in a vertical direction [7]), we concluded that
our cavity should be able to provide the frequency stability better than 10 Hz.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14480

Fig. 1. Optical setup of the two-color light source. Two external cavity diode lasers (ECDL)
work as master lasers which are directly locked to the ULE cavity with dual-wavelength
coating. The light of the master lasers is carried through polarization maintaining fibers (10 m).
The linewidth of the master lasers is narrower than 10 Hz and its long-term stability is better
than 100 kHz for a few days. STIRAP experiments are carried out with two slave lasers which
are offset-locked to the master lasers via OPLL. The slave lasers are also used for the beat notemeasurement for measuring the linewidth of the master lasers, when the slave lasers are locked
to the ULE cavity.

Fig. 2. Actual optical setup around the ULE cavity. The light from a master laser is carried by
an optical fiber to the table. A part of the light is back-reflected to the fibers in order to cancel
the phase noise in the fibers. The Glan-Thomson polarizer is used to purify the polarization forminimizing the variation in the offset of the error signal. The half waveplates before and after
the EOM are used to cancel the offset of the error signal. The isolator has two roles. One is to
extract the reflected light from the cavity for obtaining the error signal. The other is to preventthe reflected light from going back to the fiber. The two light is finally overlapped with a GlanTaylor polarizer and is incident on the cavity. The typical power incident on the cavity is 200
μW for both lights. In order to avoid interferences between the cavity and any other optics, all
the optics including isolators are tilted against the optical axis. The PD1 and PD2 are used for
the PDH locking, whereas the PD3 and PD4 are used for stabilizing the laser power to within
0.2%.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14481

Fig. 3. Long-term stability of the ULE cavity measured with a molecular transition. The offset
frequency between a laser locked to the ULE cavity and a laser monitoring molecules is plottedwith respect to date. The slope of 65 mHz/s is comparable to the previous study [3] and isunderstood as the aging of the ULE glass. The observed linear drift indicates that thefluctuation due to the variation in room temperature is well below 100 kHz.
10
Horizontal
VerticalAcceleration (g)

4
2

1
4
2

0.1
4
2

0.01
2

0.1

3

4 5 6

2

3

4 5 6

1
Frequency (Hz)

2

3

4 5

10

Fig. 4. Acceleration of the Minus-K optical table used for mounting the ULE cavity. The
acceleration at 1 Hz is well below 10 μg. Since a notched cavity suspended at Airy points has atypical sensitivity lower than 100 kHz/g in a horizontal direction and 10 kHz/g in a verticaldirection, our cavity is expected to provide a frequency stability better than 10 Hz for a few
seconds.

In our setup, frequency stability is determined by master lasers. Thus, the narrow
linewidth of the master laser is one of the crucial requirements for STIRAP experiments. Here
we briefly describe our setup for achieving the narrow linewidth. Our master laser was astandard grating-stabilized external cavity diode laser (ECDL) [8] locked to the ULE cavity
via the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) method [9]. For 901 nm, we used an antireflection (AR)coated laser diode (Eagleyard, EYP-RWE-940) which covered 870-920 nm. For 655 nm, weused a non-AR-coated laser diode (Roithner lasertechnik, ADL-65401TU) which could cover
several nm.
The linewidth of the ECDL without any feedback was approximately 100 kHz. For
narrowing the linewidth, both current and piezo feedbacks were used. The finesse of ourcavity was measured as 6000 at 901 nm and 10000 at 655 nm by using the dynamic responseof a Fabry-Perot cavity [10]. The current feedback had a role of suppressing pedestals at highfrequencies and making the lock robust against acoustic and vibrational noises. In contrast,
the piezo feedback was necessary for compensating the long-term temperature drift of ECDL
and keeping the narrow linewidth.
The current feedback signal was added to a laser diode through a bias tee. In order to keepa high gain at low frequencies, several capacitances (0.1 μF ceramic, 1 μF ceramic, two 15 μF
tantalum capacitors in series with opposite polarity) were used in parallel as coupling
capacitors in the bias tee. A commercial laser diode driver (Thorlabs, LDC202) was coupled
to the DC port of the bias tee (coupling inductor: 100 μH) through a RC low pass filter (R: 22#148289 - $15.00 USD(C) 2011 OSA

Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14482

Ω, C: 2.2 mF electrolytic and 10 μF tantalum in parallel). With this low pass filter, the current
noise of the driver was suppressed to lower than other electronic noises arising from a photodetector and a servo circuit. The servo circuit for the current feedback consisted of two stages:
the first stage was a normal inverting amplifier and the second stage was a PID amplifier. For
enhancing a gain at low frequencies, a slow integrator was added to the positive input of the
PID amplifier. This low frequency locking significantly reduced a pedestal below 200 kHz
and made locking robust against acoustic and vibrational noises. The feedback bandwidth was
limited to 2.4 MHz presumably due to the length of optical fibers (10 m) and cables for thephoto-detector signal (6 m) as well as the laser diode itself.
The piezo feedback signal was amplified with a commercial high-voltage amplifier(Matsusada precision, HPZT-0.15PB). Combined with our piezo module (Noliac, CMAP09;
capacitance, 440 nF), the amplifier limited the feedback bandwidth to 1 kHz. Since the piezo
feedback directly affected the linewidth, the servo circuit for the piezo feedback was obtainedby directly integrating the error signal without passing through any amplifier before theintegrator. For achieving a linewidth below 100 Hz, it was imperative not to subtract any
constant voltage from the error signal for cancelling an offset because then the noise in theconstant voltage would be amplified. The offset voltage of the error signal in the PDH method
varies with temperature: our solution to cancel the offset will be described hereafter.
As already reported in Ref [11], the offset in the PDH method is due to residual amplitude
modulation (RAM) induced by interference effects in the electro-optic modulator (EOM)
crystal. It was also pointed out that RAM was significantly attenuated by titling the beam withrespect to the crystal by a few degrees. However, the offset still remained in most cases. Since
this offset was sensitive to a change in the crystal length, a temperature variation caused avariation in the offset. We found that the remaining offset arose from a mismatch of the lightpolarization with respect to the crystal. By carefully adjusting the polarization of light before
and after the EOM with half waveplates (and sometimes also with quarter waveplates), we
could cancel the residual offset to below a thousandth part of the error signal over a few GHz.
In order to minimize the fluctuation of polarization, a Glan-Thomson polarizer with an
extinction ratio of 1 million was placed before the EOM. In this way, a maximum frequency
fluctuation due to RAM was suppressed to below 200 Hz. Further, we surrounded the EOM
by a polystyrene foam for passively stabilizing the temperature of the EOM. We confirmedthat a frequency fluctuation due to RAM was suppressed to below 10 Hz with our passive
method. An active temperature stabilization of the EOM [3] will provide a further stability.
Our method had another important advantage that offset-subtraction in a servo circuit was no
more required. This allowed us to significantly narrow the linewidth.
(a) Circuit diagram-65(b) Noise spectrum

-70
-75

RBW 1MHz

-80
-85
-90
-95
0

50

100
150
Frequency (MHz)200

Fig. 5. (a) Circuit diagram of the photo-detector for PDH locking. (b) Noise spectrum of theAC output of the photo-detector. The feedback capacitance required for a proper operation as atransimpedance amplifier is supplied from a parasitic capacitance of the feedback resistance.
Instead of adding a feedback capacitance, we added a capacitor and a resistance (2 pF and 51 Ω
in series) to the external compensation pin of AD8099 for reducing high frequency noise. By
adjusting the compensation capacitance, we could obtain a bandwidth of up to 70 MHz withthe same circuit.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14483

The photo-detector for the PDH locking was a home-build transimpedance amplifiercomposed of Si PIN photodiode (Hamamatsu, S5971), a high-speed op-amp (Analog Devices,
AD8099) and a feedback resistance of 20 kΩ (Fig. 5(a)). The DC output was equipped for
confirming that locking was successful. Since the noise of the photo-detector should influence
the linewidth, we evaluated the noise with a spectrum analyzer (Fig. 5(b)). The increase in thenoise below 40 MHz was a result of noise gain, which is the typical behavior of atransimpedance amplifier and is determined by the ratio of the input capacitance (the sum ofphotodiode and op-amp) to the feedback capacitance. In our case, the noise was dominated by
the current noise of AD8099. This photo-detector offered a 3dB bandwidth of 40 MHz,
which was sufficiently higher than our modulation frequency of 17 MHz. The equivalent
input noise current at 17 MHz was 0.14 pA / Hz . Assuming a photo current of 100 μA, we
can obtain a dynamic range of 9 orders, which is sufficient for achieving a linewidth of 1 Hz
from the cavity with a linewidth of 200 kHz.
There have been several important points to obtain a narrow linewidth lower than 10 Hz in
our setup. Although a part of them have already been reported in Ref [3], we describe all ofthem below since the situation (especially the finesse of the cavity) was different from Ref[3]. In general, it was important to take care not to cause any interference effects between an
optical component and the cavity.
(1) The phase-modulated light should not pass through an optical fiber. Since the fiber
length was sensitive to vibration and temperature variation, an etalon effect in thefiber caused a large variation in the offset of the error signal. In order to avoid thisproblem, the EOM was placed after the fiber. Further, an optical isolator was placed
after the EOM such that reflected light from the cavity did not return to the fiber. We
found that at least an isolation of 40dB was required. The reflected light from thecavity was extracted from the input polarizer of the isolator and was used for the
PDH locking.
(2) A photo-detector composed of surface mount components was required for avoiding
RF contamination into the photo-detector. A high power RF (17 MHz, 24 dBm) for
modulating the light leaked to the ground and contaminated the error signal. Since
the amount of the contamination was dependent on the position and shape of coaxial
cables for carrying the RF signal, this effect enhanced sensitivity to the vibration.
The surface-mounted circuit was also necessary for the proper operation of AD8099.
(3) Reflection from all of the optics should not hit the photo-detector. When thisoccurred, interferences between two (or more) reflected lights caused a fluctuation in
the offset of the error signal. Especially we had to take care of polarizers and the
crystal of the isolator. We used a slightly tilted Glan-Taylor polarizer for combining
two lights because it can have a high extinction ratio even if they were slightly tilted.
The isolator was also tilted, but then it was difficult to achieve a high transmission.
So we removed the input polarizer of the isolator and placed another tilted GlanTaylor polarizer. We also had to take care so that the transmitted light from thecavity was not scattered or reflected by any other objects.
(4) Intensity of the light to the cavity should be stabilized to below 0.2% (during a few
seconds). We found that an intensity fluctuation due to a polarization fluctuation in
the optical fiber caused a frequency fluctuation on the order of 10 Hz. This could be
attributed to the asymmetry of the error signal.
(5) The ground noise should be suppressed as low as possible. The ground of lasers(optical table) should be connected to that of servo circuits with plain stitch copper
wires with a cross section of more than 100 mm2. In addition, power supplies forelectronics (including high power components such as RF amplifiers) should beseries regulators; switching regulators should not be used since they add both highfrequency (more than 10 kHz) and low frequency (50 Hz) noises on the ground.
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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14484

With these improvements, we could obtain a linewidth of ~1 Hz. Figure 6(a) shows thebeat note between two ECDLs at 901 nm independently locked to the neighboring
longitudinal mode of the same ULE cavity whereas Fig. 6(b) shows the beat note between adye laser and an ECDL at 655 nm independently locked to the neighboring longitudinal modeof the same ULE cavity. A slow fluctuation of a few Hz during a several seconds was still
remaining because the above problems were not completely circumvented. The regulation of
the dye laser was not sufficient because an AOM had a feedback bandwidth of 300 kHz which
was determined by the beam diameter in the AOM; hence the linewidth given in Fig. 6(b)should be dominated by the linewidth of the dye laser. Although these measurements could
not detect frequency fluctuation due to the vibration of the cavity, we concluded our master
lasers had a linewidth narrower than 10 Hz from our acceleration measurement mentioned
earlier.
The present approach enables us to obtain narrow linewidths comparable to approaches
utilizing a frequency comb, given the frequency comb is locked to a stable reference such as
an atomic clock [4, 12]. Without referencing an atomic clock, both approaches are expected tohave comparable long-term stabilities, whereas our approach provides narrower linewidths ina short term (~1s) with a simpler setup.
In this study, maximum number of master lasers stabilized to the one end of the cavity was
limited to two because two orthogonal polarizations are used for overlapping two lasers.
However, in principle, more than two lasers can be independently locked to the cavity if
appropriate dichroic mirrors are used for overlapping lasers and color filters are placed before
photo-detectors. Thus, limitations in number of lasers originate only from the availability ofdichroic mirrors and the cavity mirrors with high finesses at desired wavelengths. A practicallimitation in number of available lasers exists in the space on the minus-K optical table: our
600 mm x 600 mm table was completely filled with the optical setup for two colors.
Another important issue is to carry the narrow linewidth of master lasers to slave lasers.
The OPLL with a double balanced mixer is an ideal method for realizing it. The details havealready given in Ref [13]; hence here we discuss our setup. The beat note between a masterand a slave laser was detected via a home-made photo-detector based on a GaAs PIN
photodiode with preamplifier (Hamamatsu, G10447-54; bandwidth, 8 GHz; transimpedance,
6 kΩ). The signal from the photo-detector was further amplified by a limiting amplifier(GigOptix, iT3011E; bandwidth, 10GHz; gain, 42 dB). We used a limiting amplifier in order
to flatten the frequency response of the photo-detector and enable scanning over a wide
frequency range. The signal was integrated after being mixed with a microwave source; forthe 901 nm light the signal was feed-backed to the current and the piezo; for the 655 nm lightthe signal was feed-backed to the AOM and the servo unit of the dye laser. For a diode laser,
the bandwidth of the current feedback was 4 MHz, whereas that of the piezo feedback was thesame as master lasers (1 kHz). The pedestal was suppressed to lower than 40 dB of thecarrier at a resolution bandwidth of 100 kHz. In contrast, there was a significantly larger
pedestal in the dye laser than in the diode laser (30 dB of the carrier at a resolution
bandwidth of 10 kHz); this was due to the limited feedback bandwidth of the AOM (~300
kHz). The 901 nm light could be continuously scanned for up to 2 GHz, which was limited bya mode-hop free range of the diode laser. The 655 nm light could be continuously scanned for
up to 4 GHz, which was limited because the photo-detector signal became smaller at a higher
frequency.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14485

Amplitude (dBm)

-20
-40

-40

FWHM 0.8 Hz

-60
-3
3
Frequency (MHz)-60

Amplitude (dBm)-20(a) 901 nm

0(b) 655 nm-20

FWHM 2.7 Hz

-20
-40

-3
3
Frequency (MHz)

-40
-60

-80
-40

-20
0
20
Frequency (Hz)

40

-100

0
100
Frequency (Hz)Fig. 6. Beat note spectra between two master lasers locked to a ULE cavity. (a) Two diodelasers at 901nm. (b) A dye and a diode laser at 655 nm. For both wavelengths, spectra in awide range (6 MHz) are shown in insets.

We also tried to use a digital phase-locked loop circuit (Analog Devices, AD9858) for
phase-locking of two diode lasers. In this case, the output from AD9858 was supplied as a DC
signal because it was designed to operate a voltage controlled oscillator. However, we finallygave up using it because of three serious problems. First, the bandwidth was limited to ~500
kHz and we could not increase it by using a differential gain in the servo circuit because theDC output signal could not be integrated. As a result, the lock was unstable. Second problem
was its narrow scanning range (a few 100 MHz) which was determined by the maximum
output voltage of 5V supplied from AD9858. The third and the most serious problem was thechange in the gain for the current feedback with a change in the DC voltage from AD9858
during a single scan. This was presumably due to the variation in the capacitance of acoupling capacitor before an integrator of a servo circuit, caused by the DC bias
characteristics of ceramic capacitors. This problem does not occur for OPLL with a double
balanced mixer because a DC voltage required for the piezo feedback is obtained byintegrating a small DC signal which does not influence the current feedback.
In summary, we realized a narrow-linewidth two-color light source for 901 nm and 655
nm. Master lasers locked to a ULE cavity, which has finesses of 6000 at 901nm and 10000 at
655nm, provided a linewidth narrower than 10 Hz. Slave lasers locked to master lasers could
be continuously scanned over a few GHz with keeping the narrow linewidth. In addition, we
could change the wavelength by a few tens of nm since our ULE cavity had coating over awide range. We have demonstrated that tunability and stability required for STIRAP
experiments for molecules was achieved only with a single cavity. In fact, the present setup
enabled us to produce ultracold molecules in the rovibrational ground state efficiently [6]. The
measurement of the coherence during the two-photon transfer gave an upper limit of the twophoton linewidth of 100 Hz. The present study offers a simple and robust system which is
generally applicable to a wide variety of experiments which require a two-color stable lightsource.
Acknowledgments
We thank D. Akamatsu for helpful discussions. K.A. acknowledges the support of the Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science. This work was supported by the Japan Science andTechnology Agency through ERATO UEDA Macroscopic Quantum Control project.

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Received 26 May 2011; revised 23 Jun 2011; accepted 26 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 201118 July 2011 / Vol. 19, No. 15 / OPTICS EXPRESS 14486