Laser cooling transitions in atomic erbium.

We discuss laser cooling opportunities in atomic erbium, identifying five J ? J + 1 transitions from the 4f126s2 3H6 ground state that are accessible to common visible and near-infrared continuous-wave tunable lasers. We present lifetime measurements for the 4f11(4Io 15/2)5d5/26s2 (15/2, 5/2)7o state at 11888 cm-1 and the 4f11(4Io 13/2)5d3/26s2 (13/2, 5/2)7o state at 15847 cm-1, showing values of 20 +/- 4 micros and 5.6 +/- 1.4 micros, respectively. We also present a calculated value of 13 +/- 7 s-1 for the transition rate from the 4f11(4Io 15/2)5d3/26s2 (15/2, 3/2)7 o state at 7697 cm-1 to the ground state, based on scaled Hartree-Fock energy parameters. Laser cooling on these transitions in combination with a strong, fast (5.8 ns) laser cooling transition at 401 nm, suggest new opportunities for narrowband laser cooling of a large-magnetic moment atom, with possible applications in quantum information processing, high-precision atomic clocks, quantum degenerate gases, and deterministic single-atom doping of materials.