Broadband femtosecond lasers enable efficient two-photon excitation of the ultranarrow linewidth singlet 1s2s state in helium

Abstract: We propose a broadband, femtosecond two-photon excitation scheme for efficient population transfer to the ultra-narrow linewidth $1s2s\ ^1S_0$ metastable state in helium. Using $120$ nm vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) femtosecond laser pulses, we theoretically demonstrate that a direct two-photon excitation process can achieve a population transfer efficiency of $25-30\%$, even when photoionization losses are included. The use of broadband pulses enables multiple excitation pathways to populate the excited state, in addition to compensating for significant AC Stark shifts occurring within the pulse duration. Furthermore, we introduce a two-color two-photon extreme ultraviolet-near infrared (XUV-IR) excitation scheme that will further reduce ionization losses and can achieve significantly higher transfer efficiencies of $\sim 70\%$. These results demonstrate that high excitation probability of ultra-narrow linewidth ($\sim 50$ Hz) excited states can be achieved with experimentally accessible femtosecond laser sources with a few THz bandwidth.