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Chinese Physics B

Determination of the atomic density of rubidium-87

Meng Zhao, Kai Zhang, L. Q. Chen

Published Sep 1, 2015• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Atomic density is a basic and important parameter in quantum optics, nonlinear optics, and precision measurement. In the past few decades, several methods have been used to measure atomic density, such as thermionic effect, optical absorption, and resonance fluorescence. The main error of these experiments stemmed from depopulation of the energy level, self-absorption, and the broad bandwidth of the laser. Here we demonstrate the atomic density of 87 Rb vapor in paraffin coated cell between 297 K and 334 K mainly using fluorescence measurement. Optical pumping, anti-relaxation coating, and absorption compensation approaches are used to decrease measurement error. These measurement methods are suitable for vapor temperature at dozens of degrees. The fitting function for the experimental data of 87 Rb atomic density is given.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/24/9/094206

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Atomic density is a basic and important parameter in quantum optics, nonlinear optics, and precision measurement. In the past few decades, several methods have been used to measure atomic density, such as thermionic effect, optical absorption, and resonance fluorescence. The main error of these experiments stemmed from depopulation of the energy level, self-absorption, and the broad bandwidth of the laser. Here we demonstrate the atomic density of 87 Rb vapor in paraffin coated cell between 297 K and 334 K mainly using fluorescence measurement. Optical pumping, anti-relaxation coating, and absorption compensation approaches are used to decrease measurement error. These measurement methods are suitable for vapor temperature at dozens of degrees. The fitting function for the experimental data of 87 Rb atomic density is given.
Observation of nonthermal, light-induced desorption of Cs and Rb atoms from paraffin coating is reported. Buffer-gas-free paraffin-coated cells containing Cs and Rb were exposed to laser light of various intensities and frequencies, and the change of the vapor densities as a function of time was investigated. Because atomic polarization relaxes very slowly in paraffin-coated cells (spin-relaxation times can be $\ensuremath{\gtrsim}1\mathrm{s}),$ they are applied in a variety of precision measurements (e.g., magnetometry, discrete symmetry tests, etc.). Light-induced desorption may be useful in such measurements as a method to control atomic density without changing the temperature of the cell.
The atomic number densities of 87 Rb vapor and surrounding gas 3 He in a sealed cubic cell were measured by sweeping the absorption line and fitting the experimental data with a Lorentzian profile. The absorption was carried out around the D1 transition at different temperatures. We compare our results for the number density for 87 Rb with the previous methods and calculate the fractional error to be less than 5% as well as the error for 3 He between this work and the density obtained from the filling procedure to be no more than 4.2% at 370K. In addition, we discuss the factors that contribute to the error, among which the cell temperature plays the most important role.
Atomic-vapor density change due to light induced atomic desorption (LIAD) is studied in paraffin-coated rubidium, cesium, sodium, and potassium cells. In the present experiment, low-intensity probe light is used to obtain an absorption spectrum and measure the vapor density, while light from an argon-ion laser, array of light emitting diodes, or discharge lamp is used for desorption. Potassium is found to exhibit significantly weaker LIAD from paraffin compared to Rb and Cs, and we were unable to observe LIAD with sodium. A simple LIAD model is applied to describe the observed vapor-density dynamics, and the role of the cell's stem is explored through the use of cells with lockable stems. Stabilization of Cs vapor density above its equilibrium value over 25min25\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{min}25min is demonstrated. The results of this work could be used to assess the use of LIAD for vapor-density control in magnetometers, clocks, and gyroscopes utilizing coated cells.
We report on an experiment in which the fluorescence decay time of 5P levels of Rb atoms in a coated vapor cell exceeds several of milliseconds, many orders of magnitude longer than normal decay time of excited of rubidium atoms. We found that this peculiarly long - term decay is not exponential and can only be observed in a high quality coated cell with a long lifetime of optical pumped atoms on atomic ground-state sublevels. A numerical simulation based on a complete density matrix is presented. It supports the population pumping process through the ground-state sublevels of Rb atoms as the most plausible mechanism for the observed phenomenon and it consistently demonstrates all the relevant features of the experiment. The investigation can be used, for example, to explore the quality of a various anti-relaxation coatings used for the resonant cells.
A new method and its principle are presented for measuring the each component gas pressures in Rubidium (Rb) by the analysis of absorption spectral profile. The experiment system is set up to obtain Rb absorption spectra. And then each component gas pressures in atom vapor cell is estimated. First, the relationships between transmittance of probe light, atom density and absorption cross section are introduced, and the factors which influence the absorption spectral profile and methods to measure gas pressures are given. Second, the frequency-dependence curves of transmittance and the absorption spectra are obtained through tuning the laser frequency through the Rb D1 transition. Finally, the gas pressures of Rb, N2 and He are achieved, through fitting absorption spectral profile referring to half-width and minimum transmittance value of absorption spectra. The experiment results show that gas pressures in Rb atom vapor cell can be accurately measured by absorption spectrometric methods, which will be helpful for the following study of atom vapor cell. The gas pressures of N2 and He measured by the experiments are well matched with design values. The Rb gas pressure is 30%~50% less than the saturated vapor pressure and the suppression may be due to the adsorption of the cell surfaces coated with octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) film.
Measurements were made to determine the density of rubidium dimer vapor in paraffin-coated cells. The number density of dimers and atoms in similar paraffin-coated and uncoated cells was measured by optical spectroscopy. Due to the relatively low melting point of paraffin, a limited temperature range of 43–80 °C was explored, with the lower end corresponding to a dimer density of less than 10 7 cm − 3 . With 1 min integration time, a sensitivity to dimer number density of better than 10 6 cm − 3 was achieved. No significant difference in dimer density between the cells was observed.