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Physical Review A

Vapor drift induced by resonance radiation pressure

Silvia Gozzini, Giampiero Paffuti, D. Zuppini, C. Gabbanini, L. Moi, Gerard Nienhuis

Published May 1, 1991• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The resonance-radiation-pressure effect induced by a broadband long-cavity dye laser has been observed on sodium vapor confined in a capillary cell. The diffusion of the vapor has been studied as a function of laser intensity and vapor density, and the induced drift velocity has been measured. The time evolution of the vapor density is in agreement with the theoretical model under the hypothesis of optimized laser-vapor coupling. The drift velocity and the diffusion coefficient are shown instead to be larger than predicted, indicating an incomplete thermalization of the atoms at the cell walls.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.43.5005

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The resonance-radiation-pressure effect induced by a broadband long-cavity dye laser has been observed on sodium vapor confined in a capillary cell. The diffusion of the vapor has been studied as a function of laser intensity and vapor density, and the induced drift velocity has been measured. The time evolution of the vapor density is in agreement with the theoretical model under the hypothesis of optimized laser-vapor coupling. The drift velocity and the diffusion coefficient are shown instead to be larger than predicted, indicating an incomplete thermalization of the atoms at the cell walls.
We have used the resonance radiation pressure from 40 mW of cw dye laser light propagating axially down a tube filled with sodium vapor to increase the sodium pressure (density) up to 50% over a length of 20 cm. The magnitude of the effect agrees well with measurements of the absorbed power. These observations were made with the laser tuned to the low-frequency side of the sodium D2 resonance line; for tuning to the high-frequency side, an additional unexplained effect leading to density decreases was observed.
The authors present measurements of the time evolution of the spatial density distribution of Na atoms in an argon buffer gas, inside a capillary cell with open ends. The entrance of the capillary is irradiated with a laser beam that fills its cross section, so that light-induced drift occurs. For sufficiently high intensity, a steep front may build up, which in some cases runs backwards, against the propagation direction of the light, and against the drift velocity. This happens in particular when the initial optical thickness is just above unity. The authors also study the analytical and numerical solution of the macroscopic equations for the optical piston. The steady-state distribution is found to display a sharp variation when the initial optical thickness passes the value unity. They find satisfactory agreement with the measurements.
Effects of radiation transport in the interaction of a laser beam with sodium vapor in an argon atmosphere are reported. Investigations of the temporal and spatial evolution of ground-state orientation, which is produced by optical pumping with a circularly polarized near-resonant laser beam, reveal a strong deviation from the expected pure diffusive behavior. Transverse profiles are narrowed considerably with increasing sodium density as well as with increasing pump intensity. The temporal decay of orientation is also drastically altered. A simplified nonlinear and nonlocal theoretical model of radiation trapping gives excellent qualitative agreement with the observations and allows an intuitive interpretation.