Lifetime measurements of the4f145dmetastable states in single ytterbium ions

Abstract

The ytterbium ion has a rich level structure of low-lying states, and is one of the most widely used in experiments with trapped ions. We have measured the radiative lifetimes for the two ${4f}^{14}5d$ metastable states using single ytterbium ions confined in a rf trap. The obtained lifetimes for $D_{3/2}$ and $D_{5/2}$ states are 52.7(2.4) and 7.0(0.4) ms, respectively. The results are in good agreement with previously measured values, but differ significantly from theoretical estimates. The $P_{1/2}$ branching ratio into $D_{3/2}$ has also been obtained from the experiment to be 0.0483 with a 9% uncertainty.