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Physical Review A

Enhanced selective reflection from a thin layer of a dilute gaseous medium

T. A. Vartanyan, D. L. Lin

Published Mar 1, 1995• 80 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A theory of selective reflection and transmission is developed for a system consisting of a thin layer of a dilute atomic vapor sandwiched between two transparent solids with parallel interfaces. Strong effects of spatial dispersion due to the atomic motion and electronic quenching on gas-solid interfaces are accounted for. It is shown that both even and odd Doppler-free resonances may occur in selective reflection, depending upon the thickness of the vapor layer. It is also found that the amplitude of selective reflection is a result of the interference between reflections from the two boundaries of the vapor-solid interfaces and, hence, may be greatly enhanced under certain conditions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.51.1959

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Acta Physica Sinica•Jan 1, 2020•0 citations
A theory of selective reflection and transmission is developed for a system consisting of a thin layer of a dilute atomic vapor sandwiched between two transparent solids with parallel interfaces. Strong effects of spatial dispersion due to the atomic motion and electronic quenching on gas-solid interfaces are accounted for. It is shown that both even and odd Doppler-free resonances may occur in selective reflection, depending upon the thickness of the vapor layer. It is also found that the amplitude of selective reflection is a result of the interference between reflections from the two boundaries of the vapor-solid interfaces and, hence, may be greatly enhanced under certain conditions.
We study internal selective reflection from a dielectric-vapor interface, where three levels of the vapor atoms in a \ensuremath{\Lambda} configuration are connected by two light frequencies. The reflectivity contains then both a sub-Doppler structure due to spatial dispersion in the boundary layer and the dark resonance arising from coherent population trapping. We derive analytical expressions for the reflectivity of either one of the two light beams. The contributions from atoms approaching or leaving the interface are strongly different, whereas they are identical for the case of two-state atoms.
Understanding the processes underlying the optical excitation of atomic vapor in the vicinity of solid surfaces is of interest both from physical and technical points of view. Selective reflection spectra of laser light from an interface of a transparent dielectric material and resonant vapor are known to be Doppler-free and to provide important spectroscopic information about the atom-wall interaction. On the other hand, atomic vapors have such a large and fast nonlinear response on or near resonances that they are capable of processing signals and images with milliwatt lasers at a time scale of submicroseconds. In the present paper we investigate linear and nonlinear optical properties of a thin film of atomic vapor confined between two solid surfaces. Assuming two-level atoms, we solve the Maxwell- Bloch equations for light reflection from resonant atoms. The interaction between the resonant atoms and the wall is accounted for through the boundary conditions for all elements of density matrix. The transient polarization is shown to make an important contribution not only to the field structure in the vicinity of the wall but also to the interference pattern of the reflected field. It is found that the spectrum of reflection depends remarkably on the film thickness. Strong enhancement of signal is also found from this study and possible devices for the detection are discussed.
The theory of the thin-vapor-layer linear optical properties is presented for the case of specular reflection of atoms colliding with the walls. The effects of light absorption and the shift in the resonance frequency are taken into account by means of self-consistent calculation of the field and polarization in a gaseous medium. The obtained formulas reproduce the complex dependence of the spectral line profile on the gas layer thickness and allow one to determine numerically the exact values of the ``blueshift.'' It was shown that, despite the low vapor concentration, the resonance shift is on the same order of magnitude as the width of the spectral lines.
We discuss the properties of selective reflection spectroscopy at the interface between a resonant vapor and a complex dense medium, such as a metallic film layered on a dielectric substrate. We show that in the approximation of a low-density vapor, the signal mixes up the absorptive and dispersive components of the "effective resonant susceptibility" of the vapor, with the mixture amount governed by simple laws of linear optics. Preliminary experiments performed at the interface between Cs vapor (D2, 852-nm line) and a silver-coated glass window are reported, that show qualitatively the effect of the atom-surface van der Waals interaction.
Selective reflection (SR) from the interface between transparent medium and dilute vapour is caused by the atomic vapor near the interface. The sub-Doppler structure in SR is due to the deexcitation caused by the collision between atomic vapor and the wall. Beacuse the interaction region between atomic vapor and incident light is on the order of a few hundred nanometers, SR has low optical loss and high spatial resolution. The experimental device of SR is simple. Because of the above characteristics, the SR has been widely studied and applied. The nonlinear SR spectrum of quasi lambda-type four-level system at gas-solid interface is studied theoretically in this paper. By sloving the density matrix equations, the approximate analytic solution of the matrix element associated with the probe field is obtained at normal incidence when the intensity of the probe field is very weak. The effect of the Rabi frequency, the detuning of the signal field and the detuning of the coupling field on the lineshape are analyzed by numerical simulation, respectively. Three peaks and two transparent windows appear in SR spectrum when the detuning of coupling field and signal field are both zero. The middle peak is generated due to the participation of signal field, and the other two peaks are caused by the other two fields. The linewidth and the amplitude of the middle peak can be changed by varying the Rabi frequency of signal field, and the other two peaks have little effect on the Rabi frequency of signal field. The signal generated due to the participation of signal field can be transformed from peak to transparent window when the detuning value of the signal field is equal to the Rabi frequency of coupling field. When the detuning value of the signal field is not equal to the Rabi frequency of coupling field, a dispersion-like signal between reflection peak and transparent window is generated due to the participation of signal field. The position of peak and transparent window can be manipulated by controlling the detuning value of the coupling field. When the detuning value of coupling field decreases from zero, three peaks all shift to red detuning direction. When the detuning value of coupling field is blue-detuned and increases, three peaks all shift to blue detuning direction. The numerical results can be explained by using the various electric transition pathways and dressed state theory. This study is helpful in investigating quantum coherence and dynamic process of atoms at gas-solid interface.