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arXiv:1609.04867 · Journal of Applied Physics

Characterization of high-temperature performance of cesium vapor cells with anti-relaxation coating

Wenhao Li, M. V. Balabas, Xiang Peng, Szymon Pustelny, Arne Wickenbrock, Hong Mei Guo, Dmitry Budker

Published Feb 13, 2017• 47 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Vapor cells with antirelaxation coating are widely used in modern atomic physics experiments due to the coating's ability to maintain the atoms' spin polarization during wall collisions. We characterize the performance of vapor cells with different coating materials by measuring longitudinal spin relaxation and vapor density at temperatures up to 95 °C. We infer that the spin-projection-noise-limited sensitivity for atomic magnetometers with such cells improves with temperature, which demonstrates the potential of antirelaxation coated cells in applications of future high-sensitivity magnetometers.

DOI
10.1063/1.4976017

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Vapor cells with antirelaxation coating are widely used in modern atomic physics experiments due to the coating's ability to maintain the atoms' spin polarization during wall collisions. We characterize the performance of vapor cells with different coating materials by measuring longitudinal spin relaxation and vapor density at temperatures up to 95 °C. We infer that the spin-projection-noise-limited sensitivity for atomic magnetometers with such cells improves with temperature, which demonstrates the potential of antirelaxation coated cells in applications of future high-sensitivity magnetometers.
Antirelaxation surface coatings allow long spin relaxation times in alkali-metal cells without buffer gas, enabling faster diffusion of the alkali atoms throughout the cell and giving larger signals due to narrower optical linewidths. Effective coatings were previously unavailable for operation at temperatures above 80 °C. We demonstrate that octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) can allow potassium or rubidium atoms to experience hundreds of collisions with the cell surface before depolarizing, and that an OTS coating remains effective up to about 170 °C for both potassium and rubidium. We consider the experimental concerns of operating without buffer gas and with minimal quenching gas at high vapor density, studying the stricter need for effective quenching of excited atoms and deriving the optical rotation signal shape for atoms with resolved hyperfine structure in the spin-temperature regime. As an example of a high-temperature application of antirelaxation coated alkali vapor cells, we operate a spin-exchange relaxation-free atomic magnetometer with sensitivity of 6 fT/Hz and magnetic linewidth as narrow as 2 Hz.
Spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) co-magnetometers exhibit broad application prospects in navigation-grade gyroscopes and fundamental physics experiments. However, their performance is constrained by finite spin relaxation times. To address this challenge, long-relaxation-time vapor cells have been realized through the introduction of dry-film anti-relaxation coatings. Such coatings form a stable hydrophobic layer on the inner walls of the vapor cell, which reduces the adsorption energy of alkali-metal atoms and suppresses wall-induced spin-destruction processes, thereby enhancing polarization retention and extending the coherence times of both electronic and nuclear spins. Nevertheless, a clear quantitative relationship between the coating properties and the resulting anti-relaxation performance has not yet been established. To resolve this issue, the present study introduces the background potential field in the Hamiltonian as an intermediate variable, linking the surface adsorption energy of the coating to atomic spin relaxation processes. From the perspective of microscopic energy structure, a theoretical mapping between coating characteristics and anti-relaxation performance is constructed, thereby filling a critical gap in the theoretical understanding of anti-relaxation coating mechanisms.
We present an experimental investigation of alkali atom vapor cells coated with a high quality anti-relaxation coating material based on alkenes. The prepared cells with single compound alkene based coating showed the longest spin relaxation times which have been measured up to now with room temperature vapor cells. Suggestions are made that chemical binding of a cesium atom and an alkene molecule by attack to the C=C bond plays a crucial role in such improvement of anti-relaxation coating quality.
We present an experimental investigation of alkali atom vapor cells coated with a high quality anti-relaxation coating material based on alkenes. The prepared cells with single compound alkene based coating showed the longest spin relaxation times which have been measured up to now with room temperature vapor cells. Suggestions are made that chemical binding of a cesium atom and an alkene molecule by attack to the C = C bond plays a crucial role in such improvement of anti-relaxation coating quality.
Atomic vapor-cell quantum memories are key devices for quantum information science. Anti-relaxation coatings on the inner surface of the cell suppress ground-state dephasing caused by atom-wall collisions, thereby improving memory performance. Nevertheless, systematic performance comparisons of vapor-cell quantum memories with different anti-relaxation coatings under identical conditions remain limited. Here, we experimentally compare quantum-memory performance in cesium vapor cells with and without anti-relaxation coatings-uncoated, paraffin-coated, and alkene-coated-under otherwise identical conditions to assess coating-dependent effects. Using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) as the light storage protocol, we characterize transmission, memory efficiency, and storage lifetime. The alkene-coated cell yields the largest enhancement in retrieval efficiency-more than fourfold relative to the uncoated cell and more than twofold relative to the paraffin-coated cell-while exhibiting a modest (approximately 16%) increase in storage lifetime. These results provide a systematic benchmark for evaluating anti-relaxation coatings and for this instance, identify alkene coatings as an effective choice for improving retrieval efficiency in warm-vapor-cell memories.
This letter reports light narrowing in paraffin-coated vapor cells from room temperature 27℃ to 59℃, where spin-exchange relaxation is suppressed. By means of a coating lock and eliminating the reservoir effect, an ultra-narrow magnetic resonance linewidth of 0.36 Hz and an atomic coherence lifetime of T₂ = 0.9 s are achieved. In cells free of buffer gas, the narrow linewidth over this broad temperature range is a result of enhanced spin polarization, which is facilitated by the effective suppression of radiation trapping benefiting from the stability of the vapor density. Using such cells in atomic magnetometers, the photon shot noise limit is estimated as 0.2 fT/rtHz and the spin-projection noise limit is estimated as 1.1 fT/rtHz. Also, a magnetometer system with the stable coated cell is identified, which demonstrates the potential for achieving relatively stable magnetometer sensitivity without precisely controlling the cell temperature. The long coherence lifetime and broad operating temperature range expand the potential applications of quantum memory and other quantum sensors such as atomic clocks.