Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE
Formation of narrow optical resonance by micrometer thin Rb-vapor layer
Armen D. Sargsyan
Abstract
Recently developed thin cells containing atomic vapor of micrometric column thickness L allow one to study peculiarities of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) phenomenon, along with the accompanying velocity selective optical pumping/saturation (VSOP) resonances for the case when < 100 &mgr;m. The micrometric thin cells (MTC) are filled with pure Rb and neither buffer gas nor paraffin-coated walls were used. The Λ-systems on D2 line of 85Rb have been studied experimentally with the use of bi-chromatic radiation of two separate diode lasers (λ≈780 nm, γL&≈ 5MHz). It is demonstrated that when L~60 &mgr;m it is still possible to form the EIT resonance with the sub-natural linewidth ~ 5 MHz. The EIT resonance linewidth increases up to 10 MHz , when column thickness L is reduced down to ~ 2 &mgr;m. Six VSOP resonances are detected in the fluorescence and absorption spectra when the thickness L ~ 10 &mgr;m. Dependence of the EIT resonance linewidth as a function of the atomic vapor column thickness L is presented.