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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Light-induced atomic desorption from silane-coated surfaces

S. Rachini, C. Fratini, Sergey Nikitich Atutov, E. Mariotti, V. Biancalana, Mario Meucci, Paola Bicchi, Claudio Marinelli, Anatolii M. Shalagin, L. Moi

Published Oct 21, 1998• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The atom-dielectric surface interaction in presence of light has been experimentally investigated. A high rate atomic desorption effect induced by light is presented and the most recent experimental results with rubidium and cesium on silane coated surfaces are discussed. The realization of an atomic source controlled by light is presented.

DOI
10.1117/12.328246

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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Oct 8, 2010•1 citation
The atom-dielectric surface interaction in presence of light has been experimentally investigated. A high rate atomic desorption effect induced by light is presented and the most recent experimental results with rubidium and cesium on silane coated surfaces are discussed. The realization of an atomic source controlled by light is presented.
The study of the very complicated atom-surface interaction in presence of light had an increasing momentum during these last few years. A new field has been opened by a recent experiment made by Gozzini et al.,1 where a new and interesting effect, consisting in a huge sodium desorption when a silane coated cell is illuminated at room temperature, has been observed. Similar results, still in silane coated cells, have also been obtained by Meucci et al.2 with rubidium and cesium. The effect, shortly indicated hereafter as LIAD (light-induced atom desorption), is totally different from the other processes produced by very intense laser pulses, where the main effect produced by light is a thermal one.
We review some recent studies on light-induced atomic desorption (LIAD) from dielectric surfaces. Alkali-metal atoms adsorbed either on organic films or on porous glass are released into the vapor phase under illumination. The measurements were performed in Pyrex resonance cells either coated with siloxane films or containing a porous glass sample. In both cases, the experimental results show that LIAD can be used to produce atomic densities suitable for most atomic physics experiments. Moreover, we find that photoinduced effects, correlated with LIAD, produce reversible formation and evaporation of alkali-metal clusters in porous glass. These processes depend on the light frequency, making the porous glass transmittance controllable by light.
Huge light-induced rubidium atom desorption has been observed from porous silica samples placed inside Pyrex cells kept at room temperature. The desorption rate and the maximum vapour density change have been measured as a function of the desorbing light intensity. Their values are comparable with those recently obtained in Pyrex cells coated with organic films. A linear dependence of the desorption rate and a square-root dependence of the maximum density increase on light intensity indicate that diffusion inside the glass pores is a key mechanism. The application of this effect to develop light-controlled atomic dispensers compatible with high vacuum environment is discussed.
We present in this paper recent results on Light - Induced Atom Desorption (LIAD) in sealed and open coated cells. LIAD is defined via the description of an experiment on rubidium atoms stored in a dry - film coated cell, where a few milliwatts of even non coherent and non resonant light are able to increase the alkali atomic density for more than one order of magnitude. Modeling of the effect is given. New features become relevant in the case of LIAD in porous glasses: in fact, although the photodesorption efficiency per unit area in bare glass is much lower, photoatomic sources can be prepared, due to the huge inner surface of porous samples. We applied LIAD from organic coatings to the stabilization of alkali densities out of equilibrium: sodium case is here discussed. Finally, we report on fully original, preliminary measurements of rubidium Magneto - Optical Trap loading via LIAD from a dry - film coated cell.