Study of light shifts in laser pumped quantum discriminator frequency

L. A. Budkin, M. N. Penenkov, A. I. Pikhtelev +1 more

C. Affolderbach, C. Andreeva, S. Cartaleva +3 more

A. A. Baranov, Ермак Сергей Викторович, E. A. Sagitov +2 more

The contributions of the vector and scalar components to the magnetically dependent microwave transition frequency light shift are analyzed and the compensation of these components is experimentally demonstrated for the 87Rb atoms optically oriented by a laser tuned to the D 2 line of the head doublet. The Allan variance is studied as a function of the averaging time for a tandem of optically pumped quantum magnetometers (OPQMs), one of which is based on a low-frequency spin oscillator while another is based on a quantum microwave discriminator with a resonance frequency that corresponds to magnetically dependent transitions between HFS sublevels with the extremal value of the magnetic quantum number. It is shown that the compensation of the scalar and vector components of the light shift in OPQMs reduces the Allan variance at averaging times that exceed hundreds of seconds compared to a quantum discriminator based on the magnetically independent 0–0 transition. In this case, the minimal Allan variance in OPQMs at the end resonance is achieved at considerably longer averaging times than in the case of the quantum discriminator that is tuned to the 0–0 transition frequency.

L. A. Budkin, A. I. Pikhtelev, S. L. Puzanov +1 more

Minoru Hashimoto, Motoichi Ohtsu

Precise measurement of the shift (i.e. microwave frequency shift induced by the electric field of the pumping light) in a rubidium atomic clock pumped by a semiconductor laser is discussed. The spectral lineshape of the microwave resonance, which is used as a frequency discriminator for the atomic clock in the optical microwave double resonance experiment, depends strongly on the spatial distribution of the laser beam intensity, laser frequency detuning, and modulation parameters of the microwave frequency. Based on measurements of the deformation of the resonance lineshape, a self-tuning system was built to compensate for the effect of light shift. As a result of controlling the laser frequency with this system, long-term drift of the microwave frequency as low as 6.3*10/sup -13//h was obtained.>

Theodor W. Hänsch, HERBERT WALTHER