A solid state laser system for Doppler-free spectroscopy of muonium

The thesis describes a new high precision measurement of the 1S-2S transition frequency in muonium, carried out at the ISIS facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, using a solid-state laser system. The focus of the thesis is mainly the work carried out on the pulsed part of the laser system. The transition frequency is measured by the Doppler-free spectroscopy. The two-photon 1S-2S transition is detected by observing the positive muon released after subsequent photo-ionisation from the 2S state by a third photon from the same laser field. An accurate frequency standard for the experiment was provided by a Doppler-free transition in molecular iodine. A cw Ti:sapphire laser operating around 732 nm locked to this reference transition provided a stable output for injection seeding the pulsed alexandrite laser. This has been optimised and modified to achieve a stable operation in a single transverse and longitudinal mode. There were stringent requirements on the laser pulse timing relative to an external trigger in order to synchronise the laser pulse with the muon pulse from the ISIS facility. A method of cavity length stabilisation, which reduced the jitter of the laser from approximately 20 #mu#s to 100ns and allowed us to trigger the laser externally, is described. This was performed in two stages using an intracavity, piezo-mounted, quartz plate and two fast, electro-optic modulators. The frequency chirp of the laser output, measured using a heterodyne technique to 1MHz, was found to be of the order of 80-120 MHz for a 30-40 mJ output. This chirp was shown to be the result of a fast change of the refractive index in the alexandrite rods, and was found to be directly proportional to the population inversion change during the Q-switched pulse. A method of chirp compensation was developed leading to a reduction of the chirp by an order of magnitude i.e. to the level of 5-15 MHz. The alexandrite output was frequency tripled using LBO and BBO crystals with a conversion efficiency in excess of 10 %, yielding UV pulse energies of 3 to 6 mJ. The 1S-2S transition frequency has been measured to be 2,455,528,940.99 (9.75)(3.5) MHz which is in agreement with the theoretical value of 2,455,528,934.61 (3.44) MHz. Measurement of 1S-2S interval in deuterium, performed primarily to study systematic errors, represents the best pulsed measurement to date and is in an agreement with values obtained with cw lasers. (author)SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:D213675 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo