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Annales de Physique

Bitter, Brossel, Kastler and beyond : thirty years of U.S.-French collaboration in optical resonance

H. Henry Stroke

Published Jan 1, 1985• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A few reminescences of the rôle of A. Kastler, F. Bitter, and J. Brossel in the development of optical pumping and resonance and the influence on some current work in laser spectroscopy are presented. Coherence narrowing is recalled and results of an experiment with S. Klepner at N.Y.U., studying the effect at constant atom density but varying temperatures, are reported.

DOI
10.1051/anphys:01985001006058900

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A few reminescences of the rôle of A. Kastler, F. Bitter, and J. Brossel in the development of optical pumping and resonance and the influence on some current work in laser spectroscopy are presented. Coherence narrowing is recalled and results of an experiment with S. Klepner at N.Y.U., studying the effect at constant atom density but varying temperatures, are reported.
In 1950, Professor Alfred Kastler described the way in which optical fields could be used to redistribute population among the Zeeman sublevels of a given atomic state. The « optical pumping » process discovered by Kastler continues to be a research topic of current interest. With developments in laser spectroscopy, it has become important to understand the interplay of optical pumping, transit-time and collisional effects to properly interpret experimental line shapes. A brief review of the current status of the theory is given, with special emphasis on what, as yet, appear to be unresolved problems. Velocity selective optical pumping and collision-induced resonances are discussed.
Among all the inventions that quantum physics has produced, the laser holds a particularly important place, both for the rich story of successive discoveries that led to its birth, and for the role it has played in fundamental and applied research. I recall here the lineage of theoretical discoveries and experiments that have marked this history, restricting myself to the contribution of lasers to blue sky science and leaving apart its well-known role in various domains of technology. This story started from advances in the old quantum theory, from Einstein’s theoretical description of stimulated emission to O. Stern’s experimental discovery of the spatial quantization of the electron spin. Nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic clocks, optical pumping, and masers followed and the pace of discoveries accelerated with the appearance of the laser in 1960. This extraordinary light source has since enabled breakthroughs in fundamental physics and opened up fields of research that could not even have been imagined at the time of its birth. I was fortunate to begin my career in physics at this crossroad of atomic physics and optics. I give in this article my personal view of the great adventures in fundamental research in which I participated as an actor or spectator, from the cooling and trapping of atoms by light, to the physics of quantum gases of bosons and fermions, the manipulation of individual quantum particles and quantum simulations. Many other areas of fundamental physics, which I will only mention briefly, owe their development to lasers and further advances are still to be expected in the years to come.