Sub-Doppler Spectroscopy of Excited Atoms in a Multilayer Gas Cell

N. Beverini, А. Ч. Измайлов

А. С. Гасанова, Ch. O. Qajar, А. Ч. Измайлов

A. Ch. Izmailov

А. Ч. Измайлов, А. С. Гасанова

А. Ч. Измайлов

We have studied theoretically nontrivial specific features of sub-Doppler resonances of saturated absorption in a multilayer gas cell with a rarefied gas medium, which is a compact analog of a large number of plane-parallel atomic beams. Spatially separated saturating and probing monochromatic laser beams that co- and counterpropagate (at the same frequency) in this cell have been considered. In this situation, the action of the light radiation of the saturating beam on the probing beam is determined by optically pumped atoms that fly between the beams under conditions that the longitudinal components of their velocities experience selection due to a specific geometry of the multilayer cell. Such a selection leads to a narrowing of the sub-Doppler resonance in the absorption of the probing beam and decreases the difference between the structures of this resonance for the cases of co- and counterpropagation of the saturating radiation. We have found that, in the considered multilayer cell, the effective width of the sub-Doppler resonance can be smaller (by a factor of about 1.5) than the extremely narrow characteristic width of the well-known Lamb dip in spectroscopy of saturated absorption in the standard gas cell. Results of this study can be used in atomic spectroscopy of ultrahigh resolution and for the laser-frequency stabilization.

А. Ч. Измайлов

Abstract A method of sub-Doppler spectroscopy is proposed, based on the peculiarities of narrowing over time of the velocity distribution of optically excited atoms (molecules) of a rarefied gas medium in a thin cell after exposure to a sufficiently short pulse of broadband radiation. Recording of narrow sub-Doppler resonances at the central frequencies of quantum transitions from the atomic state excited by such a pump pulse is carried out by subsequent probe monochromatic light pulses. The optimal conditions for the implementation of this spectroscopy method occur when the radiation decay time of an optically excited atomic level exceeds the characteristic time of flight of atoms between the walls of the thin cell under consideration, the inner thickness of which is many times smaller than its transverse dimensions.