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arXiv:2301.04896 · Optics Express

Fabrication and characterization of iodine photonic microcells for sub-Doppler spectroscopy applications

Clément Goïcoechéa, Thomas Billotte, Matthieu Chafer, Martin Maurel, Jenny Jouin, Philippe Thomas, D. Naik, Frédéric Gérôme, Benoît Debord, Fetah Benabid

Published Feb 16, 2023• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report on the development of all-fiber stand-alone iodine-filled photonic microcells demonstrating record absorption contrast at room temperature. The microcell’s fiber is made of inhibited coupling guiding hollow-core photonic crystal fibers. The fiber-core loading with iodine was undertaken at 10 −1 -10 −2 mbar vapor pressure using what, to the best of our knowledge, is a novel gas-manifold based on metallic vacuum parts with ceramic coated inner surfaces for corrosion resistance. The fiber is then sealed on the tips and mounted on FC/APC connectors for better integration with standard fiber components. The stand-alone microcells display Doppler lines with contrasts up to 73% in the 633 nm wavelength range, and an off-resonance insertion loss between 3 to 4 dB. Sub-Doppler spectroscopy based on saturable absorption has been carried out to resolve the hyperfine structure of the P(33)6-3 lines at room temperature with a full-width at half maximum of 24 MHz on the b4 component with the help of lock-in amplification. Also, we demonstrate distinguishable hyperfine components on the R(39)6-3 line at room temperature without any recourse to signal-to-noise ratio amplification techniques.

DOI
10.1364/oe.484049

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We report on the development of all-fiber stand-alone iodine-filled photonic microcells demonstrating record absorption contrast at room temperature. The microcell’s fiber is made of inhibited coupling guiding hollow-core photonic crystal fibers. The fiber-core loading with iodine was undertaken at 10 −1 -10 −2 mbar vapor pressure using what, to the best of our knowledge, is a novel gas-manifold based on metallic vacuum parts with ceramic coated inner surfaces for corrosion resistance. The fiber is then sealed on the tips and mounted on FC/APC connectors for better integration with standard fiber components. The stand-alone microcells display Doppler lines with contrasts up to 73% in the 633 nm wavelength range, and an off-resonance insertion loss between 3 to 4 dB. Sub-Doppler spectroscopy based on saturable absorption has been carried out to resolve the hyperfine structure of the P(33)6-3 lines at room temperature with a full-width at half maximum of 24 MHz on the b4 component with the help of lock-in amplification. Also, we demonstrate distinguishable hyperfine components on the R(39)6-3 line at room temperature without any recourse to signal-to-noise ratio amplification techniques.
Generation of sub-Doppler spectral lines in compact devices is very useful in bringing functionalities such as laser-frequency stabilization, slow light application or quantum sensing to a wider and friendlier use. An all-fiber Photonic MicroCell (PMC), which consists of a gas-filled hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) hermetically spliced to a solid optical fiber [1], is one of the most promising of such devices because of its ultra-long interaction length. Thus far, the PMC assembly processes are either limited to a short range of HCPCF core diameter [2], or entails the use of glue [3], or exhibit high injection losses (~10dB) [4]. Here, we report on a 7-meter contaminant free and single-mode C2H2-PMC. The process consists of end-capping a 80µbar acetylene-filled HCPCF via heat-collapsing a fused borosilicate sleeve on the two HCPCF tips. The process requires no helium gas [2] nor glue [3], which are potential pollution sources, and keeps the physical integrity of the HCPCF intact. The used HCPCF exhibits a novel cladding lattice and operates in a robust single-mode fashion [5]. The fiber has a 30 µm core diameter, a 10dB/km transmission loss at 1540 nm. The resulted PMC has polished and mounted ends to FC/APC connectors for integration (Fig. 1(a)), exhibits a total insertion loss of ~2dB and a motion-resistant single-mode guidance (see reconstructed near field in Fig. 1 (b)). The PMC was then used to generate saturable absorption spectroscopy (SAS) measurement (Fig. 1 (b-c))). The observed saturable absorption peak reaches 25% contrast and 20MHz linewidth (FWHM) for ~190mW of pump power that is the highest observed contrast in a fully sealed PMC [6]. The evolution of the SA peak characteristics over pump power are represented in Fig. 1 (e), and shows for pump power of less than 100 mW a transit-time limited linewidth (19MHz), thus indicating no additional collisional dephasing that could be induced by contaminant during the assembly process. The linewidth was monitored over 3 months for 23 mW pump power with no significant variation (Fig.1(f)), demonstrating thus its hermeticity, and its suitability for long time and mobile applications. Fig. 1. (a) FC/APC patch-cord like final PMC. (b) Near field intensity profile at the output of polished PMC. (c) Normalized SAS measurement on P9 absorption line of acetylene (1530.371nm) in purple line, simulation of SAS signal for 31 µbar pressure in dashed line. (d) SA contrast zoomed in SA peak with numerical calculation in dashed line. (e) Experimental (dots) and calculated (line) SA transparency peak contrast and linewidth evolution with pump power. The dashed line correspond to the transit time limit. (f) Evolution of SA FWHM during 95 days for a pump power of 23mW.
We present high-resolution spectroscopy of I(2) vapor that is loaded and trapped within the core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). We compare the observed spectroscopic features to those observed in a conventional iodine cell and show that the saturation characteristics differ significantly. Despite the confined geometry it was still possible to obtain sub-Doppler features with a spectral width of ~6 MHz with very high contrast. We provide a simple theory which closely reproduces all the key observations of the experiment.
This thesis reported on atomic spectroscopy for the development of alkaline atomic vapor photonic microcell (PMC). The work is motivated by reproducing the outstanding laboratory environment based performances achieved in the fields of frequency standard and coherent optics in highly compact and stand-alone devices that can be accessible to a wider scientific community or to a commercial market. In our case these future devices will be based a Hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) filled with a gas phase material to form a PMC, and outstands with an ultra-long long interaction length and micrometric modal area. However, the micrometric scale of the fiber core harboring the atoms raises several technical and scientific challenges. Among the technical challenges, we list the development of efficient process for atom loading inside long hollow fiber with small core diameter, the suppression or mitigation of physio-chemical reactivity of the atoms (i.e. Rubidium) with the fiber core inner-surface silica etc. In parallel, the large surface-to-volume ratio of the fiber-core raises questions like the coherence relaxation dynamics and the nature and effect of the atom-surface interaction. The thesis reports on fiber-core inner surface coating with different materials to mitigate the physio-chemical reactions of the confined atoms with the surface, on tapering large core inhibited coupling Kagome HC-PCF, and splicing technique that ensures low splice loss and no atomic reactivity during the splicing process. In parallel, the thesis reports on a set of spectroscopy experiments to assess the relaxation dynamics of atoms inside HC-PCF and to report on novel sub-Doppler transparencies.
We have constructed a compact and robust optical frequency standard based around iodine vapor loaded into the core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). A 532 nm laser was frequency locked to one hyperfine component of the R(56) 32-0 (127)I(2) transition using modulation transfer spectroscopy. The stabilized laser demonstrated a frequency stability of 2.3×10(-12) at 1 s, almost an order of magnitude better than previously reported for a laser stabilized to a gas-filled HC-PCF. This limit is set by the shot noise in the detection system. We present a discussion of the current limitations to the performance and a route to improve the performance by more than an order of magnitude.
We present high-resolution spectroscopy of Iodine vapour that is loaded and trapped within the core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF). We compare the observed spectroscopic features to those seen in a conventional iodine cell and show that the saturation characteristics differ significantly. Despite the confined geometry it was still possible to obtain sub-Doppler features with a spectral width of ~6 MHz with very high contrast. We provide a simple theory which closely reproduces all the key observations of the experiment.