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The optical absorption and fluorescence spectra of alkali atoms isolated in liquid and solid He matrices depend on specific macroscopic matrix properties, such as their molar volume and (anisotropic) elasticity constants, and provide thus information about the quantum matrix. We apply optical spectroscopy to investigate the properties of a recently discovered impurity-stabilized doped He4 solid that exists in equilibrium with pressurized superfluid helium close to the solidification∕melting point of pure helium. The difference between the local He density around the implanted atoms obtained in the present experiment and the average density measured earlier suggests that the impurity-stabilized solid He is in fact a porous structure filled with liquid helium.

A little more than a decade ago our team extended the field of defect spectroscopy in cryocrystals to solid He4 matrices, in both their body-centered cubic (bcc) and hexagonal close-packed (hcp) configurations. In this review paper we survey our pioneering activities in the field and compare our results to those obtained in the related fields of doped superfluid helium and doped helium nanodroplets, domains developed in parallel to our own efforts. We present experimental details of the sample preparation and the different spectroscopic techniques. Experimental results of purely optical spectroscopic studies in atoms, exciplexes, and dimers and their interpretation in terms of the so-called bubble model will be discussed. A large part of the paper is devoted to optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) processes in alkali atoms. The quantum nature of the helium matrix and the highly isotropic shape of the local trapping sites in the bcc phase make solid helium crystals ideal matrices for high-resolutio...

We describe a magnetic source imaging camera (MSIC) allowing a direct dynamic visualization of the two-dimensional spatial distribution of the individual components Bx(x,y), By(x,y) and Bz(x,y) of a magnetic field. The field patterns allow—in principle— a reconstruction of the distribution of sources that produce the field B→ by inverse problem analysis. We compare experimentally recorded point-spread functions, i.e., field patterns produced by point-like magnetic dipoles of different orientations with anticipated field patterns. Currently, the MSIC can resolve fields of ≈10 pT (1 s measurement time) range in a field of view up to ∼20 × 20 mm2. The device has a large range of possible applications. As an example, we demonstrate the MSIC's use for recording the spatially resolved Néel magnetorelaxation of blocked magnetic nanoparticles.

The Surrounding Field Compensation (SFC) system described in this work is installed around the four-layer Mu-metal magnetic shield of the neutron electric dipole moment spectrometer located at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The SFC system reduces the DC component of the external magnetic field by a factor of about 20. Within a control volume of approximately 2.5m x 2.5m x 3m disturbances of the magnetic field are attenuated by factors of 5 to 50 at a bandwidth from $10^{-3}$ Hz up to 0.5 Hz, which corresponds to integration times longer than several hundreds of seconds and represent the important timescale for the nEDM measurement. These shielding factors apply to random environmental noise from arbitrary sources. This is achieved via a proportional-integral feedback stabilization system that includes a regularized pseudoinverse matrix of proportionality factors which correlates magnetic field changes at all sensor positions to current changes in the SFC coils., 33 pages, 18 figures

We present an experimental study of the laser-induced luminescence spectra of Mn atoms in solid helium matrices. We observe transitions of the valence electron and of inner-shell electrons. We find that the Mn-He interaction perturbs the inner-shell transitions to a lesser extent than the valence-electron transitions. The observed lineshapes of the inner-shell transitions of Mn are similar to those of an inner-shell transition in Ba studied earlier. At the same time, they are more strongly perturbed than the corresponding transitions in Au and Cu under the same conditions. We suggest a qualitative explanation of these observations based on the atomic bubble model. Our results also suggest that the inner-shell transitions of Mn in solid He are more strongly perturbed than the same lines of Mn isolated in solid Ar or Kr matrices.

We present a systematic experimental study of absorption and fluorescence spectra of Au atoms in bulk liquid and solid helium matrices. The results are compared to the spectra of Cu atoms studied earlier. We investigate the dependence of the observed spectral lineshapes on the helium pressure. The observed splitting of the 5d(10)6p - 5d(9)6s(2) transitions of Au in hcp solid He gives evidence for an anisotropic trapping site structure formed either by a non-spherical atomic bubble or a four-vacancy center.

Copper atoms and molecules are laser ablated into bulk liquid and solid helium, and the emission spectra of the laser excited D→X, B→X, and a→X transitions of Cu(2) are observed to exhibit clearly resolved vibrational bands. Surprisingly, for the D→X and the B→X transitions, no differences were observed for superfluid He at 1.5 K, for the normal liquid at 2.65 K, or for the 1.5 K solid at higher pressures of about 30 bars. An interpretation based on the bubble model indicates that the interaction with the He matrix is much weaker than in the case of the alkali atoms. Compared to other solid rare gas matrices, the line shifts and line widths in condensed helium are much smaller by nearly an order of magnitude.

We present a theoretical and experimental study of the laser-induced formation process and of the emission spectra of Cs*He(n) exciplexes in the hcp and bcc phases of solid helium. Two different exciplex molecules are detected: a linear triatomic Cs*He2, which can exist in two electronic states: APi(1/2) and BPi(3/2), and a larger complex, where six or seven He atoms form a ring around a single cesium atom in the 6P(1/2) state. A theoretical model is presented, which allows the interpretation of the experimentally observed spectra.