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Physical Review Letters

Saturated Absorption with Spatially Separated Laser Fields: Observation of Optical "Ramsey" Fringes

Jonas Bergquist, S. A. Lee, J. L. Hall

Published Jan 24, 1977• 159 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have observed Ramsey's interference fringes in the optical region using saturated-absorption techniques in a fast atomic beam. We discuss their physical origin and describe an optical configuration that guarantees fringes of high symmetry. This technique, with its high-resolution potential, should lead to dramatic improvements in spectral measurements.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.38.159

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We have observed Ramsey's interference fringes in the optical region using saturated-absorption techniques in a fast atomic beam. We discuss their physical origin and describe an optical configuration that guarantees fringes of high symmetry. This technique, with its high-resolution potential, should lead to dramatic improvements in spectral measurements.
Using two coherent time-delayed short pulses, we have demonstrated that one can obtain, in the profile of Doppler-free two-photon resonances, interference fringes with a splitting 12T\frac{1}{2T}2T1​ (TTT, delay time between the two pulses) much smaller than the spectral width $\frac{1}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ of each pulse ($\ensuremath{\tau}$ duration of each pulse). This method should lead to a number of important improvements in the presently available techniques of ultrahigh-resolution laser spectroscopy of atoms and molecules.
A non-perturbative theoretical analysis of Ramsey interference lineshapes in three-level lambda systems excited by laser fields has been developed for the general case of several interaction regions. In conventional Ramsey excitation, two laser fields excite the lambda system each in two separate spatial interaction regions. Here we examine how increasing the number of interaction regions or altering the interaction times change and improve the lineshape characteristics such as fringe visibility. For short interaction times the fringe pattern is strongly dependent on the number of interaction regions, with the n = 2 sinusoidal fringes replaced by sharper fringes of greater visibility. With larger interaction times, the fringe pattern is virtually unchanged on increasing the number of interaction regions. The optimum fringe pattern is obtained with short interaction times and a larger (n a 9) number of regions.
Well-resolved Ramsey fringes have been demonstrated using laser Stark spectroscopy of CH3{\mathrm{CH}}_{3}CH3​F in a molecular beam with two interaction regions. Fringe separations as low as 155 kHz were obtained. The interaction regions were produced by masks containing slits placed in the Gaussian-profile beam of a cw CO2{\mathrm{CO}}_{2}CO2​ laser. Population inversion resulting from a frequency sweep associated with the curvature of the slit-diffracted wave fronts has limited the observations at high laser-power values. An imaging system has been shown to eliminate this effect. Experiments with three and five laser-molecular beam crossings were also conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of using multiple interaction regions as a tool for high-resolution spectroscopy. The results have been modeled using the optical Bloch equation for a two-level system. Good agreement with the experiment has been obtained.