Collisional population transfer in yterbium ions

Long-lived metastable states of Yb+ ions are used for atomic frequency standards, precision measurements, and quantum information research. The effect of population trapping and transfer in these states must be well understood. We report here the transfer of Yb+ ions into the long-lived {sup 2}F{sub 7/2} state by means of collisions between He buffer gas and Yb+ ions held in a linear Paul trap. Transfer rates were measured as functions of buffer-gas pressure and repump-laser power, and the collisional population transfer rates were extracted. The measured transfer rate coefficients are 8.32(75)x10-11 and 8.65(33)x10-11 cm3/s for the collisional processes {sup 2}P{sub 1/2}{yields}{sup 2}D{sub 5/2} and {sup 2}D{sub 3/2}{yields}{sup 2}F{sub 7/2}, respectively.