Spectroscopy of electric dipole and quadrupole transitions in 224Ra+

Spencer Kofford, Haoran Li, Robert Kwapisz, Roy A. Ready, Akshay Sawhney, Oi Chee Cheung, Mingyu Fan, Andrew M. Jayich
Physical Review A 111, 032802 (2025)

We report on spectroscopy of the low-lying electronic transitions in 224Ra+. We measured the frequencies of the 2S1/22P1/2 cooling transition, the 2S1/22D5/2 clock transition, the 2D3/22P3/2 electric dipole transition, and the 2D5/22P3/2 cleanout transition. From these measurements we calculate the frequencies of the 2D3/22P1/2 repump transition, the 2S1/22D3/2 electric quadrupole transition, and the 2S1/22P3/2 electric dipole transition. The ion’s low charge-to-mass ratio and convenient wavelengths make 224Ra+ a promising optical clock candidate.