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Applied Physics Letters

Measuring excited state lifetime of Rb atoms with pump-probe technique

Xi Zeng, D. L. Boïko

Published Aug 31, 2015• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

A technique for measuring the excited state lifetime τex of optical transitions in alkali atoms is presented. It is a form of pump-probe technique based on time-resolved optical transmission through the atomic vapor cell. This technique can serve as an alternative to the traditionally used time-resolved photofluorescence methods when measuring alkali vapor cells with heavily quenched fluorescence, where the τex is expected to be on the order of a few nanoseconds, and the highly sensitive fluorescence detectors with sub-nanosecond temporal resolution that are required may not be available. We use this technique to measure the τex of Rb atoms in vapor cells with different buffer gas pressures.

DOI
10.1063/1.4929918

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A technique for measuring the excited state lifetime τex of optical transitions in alkali atoms is presented. It is a form of pump-probe technique based on time-resolved optical transmission through the atomic vapor cell. This technique can serve as an alternative to the traditionally used time-resolved photofluorescence methods when measuring alkali vapor cells with heavily quenched fluorescence, where the τex is expected to be on the order of a few nanoseconds, and the highly sensitive fluorescence detectors with sub-nanosecond temporal resolution that are required may not be available. We use this technique to measure the τex of Rb atoms in vapor cells with different buffer gas pressures.
We report on an experiment in which the fluorescence decay time of 5P levels of Rb atoms in a coated vapor cell exceeds several of milliseconds, many orders of magnitude longer than normal decay time of excited of rubidium atoms. We found that this peculiarly long - term decay is not exponential and can only be observed in a high quality coated cell with a long lifetime of optical pumped atoms on atomic ground-state sublevels. A numerical simulation based on a complete density matrix is presented. It supports the population pumping process through the ground-state sublevels of Rb atoms as the most plausible mechanism for the observed phenomenon and it consistently demonstrates all the relevant features of the experiment. The investigation can be used, for example, to explore the quality of a various anti-relaxation coatings used for the resonant cells.
We have developed a simple heuristic method for determining the polarization of an optically pumped alkali-metal vapor. A linearly polarized probe beam traverses a vapor cell perpendicular to the pump-beam propagation direction, and the transmitted beam intensity is monitored for orthogonal linear polarizations. As the probe beam is scanned in frequency across the D1{D}_{1}D1​ transition, its linear-polarization-dependent transmission can be used as a measure of the atomic orientation of the vapor. We analyze these transmission differences and their dependence on the alkali-metal number density in the vapor.
At different Rb densities,Rb vapor was irradiated in a glass fluorescence cell with pulses of radiation from a pumped-laser,populating Rb 2 (B 1 Π u)state by single-photon absorption.Energy transfer in Rb 2 (B 1 Π u) + Rb(5S) collision is studied using methods of atomic and molecular fluorescence.The decay signal of time-resolved fluorescence from B 1 Π u → X 1 Σ + g transition was monitored.The effective lifetimes of the B 1 Π u state can be resolved.The plot of reciprocal of effective lifetimes of the B 1 Π u state against Rb densities yielded the slope that indicated the total cross section for deactivation and the intercept that provided the radiative lifetime of the state.The radiative lifetime 23.5ns for the B 1 Π u is obtained.The cross section for deactivation of the Rb 2 (B 1 Π u) molecules by collisions with Rb atoms is σ 3=(4.33 ± 0.14) × 10-15 cm 2.At the different Rb densities,the time-integrated intensities of the resulting Rb emission lines.I(5P 3/2 → 5S 1/2) and I(5P 1/2 → 5S 1/2) were measured.The absolute values for Rb 2 (B 1 Π u)+Rb→ Rb 2 (1 1 Σ + g) + Rb(5P J)collisional transfer cross sections have been obtained.The cross sections are σ 31=(2.86 ± 0.13) × 10-16 cm 2 (for transferring to 5P 1/2) and σ 32=(8.30 ± 0.38) × 10-16 cm 2 (for transferring to 5P 3/2),respectively.
Optical pumping is fundamental to high-precision measurement using thermal alkali-metal atoms in vapor cells. In applications such as atomic magnetometry, buffer gases (e.g., N2\mathrm{N}_2N2​ or He\mathrm{He}He) at specific pressures are introduced to quench fluorescence and mitigate wall relaxation. In the high-pressure limit (e.g., the N2\mathrm{N}_2N2​ pressure pN2>1p_{\mathrm{N}_2}> 1pN2​​>1~atm), where collisional broadening exceeds hyperfine splittings of the atoms, optical pumping theory provides a clear description of the angular momentum exchange between photons and atomic spins. However, in many magnetic sensing scenarios, the high-pressure approximation becomes inadequate as its pressure conditions are not strictly satisfied. Consequently, an explicit description of optical pumping under realistic pressures is critical for selecting operating points and enhancing system performance. To address this, we develop a unified theoretical framework of optical pumping in the quasi-high-pressure regime, where collisional broadening is comparable to the ground-state hyperfine splitting. We demonstrate that light absorption, spin polarization, and magnetic-resonance linewidth in this regime differ significantly from those predicted by the high-pressure limit and offer favorable operating conditions. Our study extends conventional modeling and offers critical guidance for atomic magnetometry operating under realistic buffer gas pressures.
Abstract We report on an experiment in which the fluorescence decay time of 5P levels of Rb atoms in a coated vapor cell exceeds several of milliseconds that many orders of magnitude longer than normal decay time of excited of rubidium atoms. This effect has been observed by using the pump laser with fixing frequency and the periodically scan the probing laser frequency of which overlap all Rb hyperfine linens of 5P-5S transition. Long time fluorescence decay take place in wide part of the spherical high quality coated cell. In cylindrical part of the cell or in uncoated cell the long time fluorescence decay was disappeared.