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Photonics

Design of a Measuring Device and Experimental Study into the Relationship between Temperature and the Density of Alkali Metal-Vapor

Huining Shang, Sheng Zou, Wei Quan, Binquan Zhou, Shun Li, Weiyong Zhou, Fengwen Zhao

Published Jan 21, 2023• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The temperature of the alkali metal cell, which affects the density of the alkali-metal vapor and the gas pressure, is usually difficult to measure directly. However, the temperature of the alkali-metal cell and the density of the alkali-metal vapor are important parameters that affect the performance of the atomic sensor. In this paper, a device that can directly measure the internal temperature of an alkali metal cell in real time is designed for the first time to explore the relationship between alkali-metal vapor density and temperature. Alkali-metal vapor density is measured using the absorption spectrum. The pressure broadening model, combined with the transition of four hyperfine levels, was used to fit the absorption line of 87Rb D1 under the action of 700 Torr N2, and a good fitting effect was obtained. The experimental results show that the density of 87Rb is less than the value calculated by the empirical formula. Based on the experimental results, we give the calculation formula of 87Rb density with an uncertainty of only 4% and obtain the temperature dependence index of the line width and linear displacement of 87Rb in N2 by analyzing the absorption spectrum.

DOI
10.3390/photonics10020112

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The temperature of the alkali metal cell, which affects the density of the alkali-metal vapor and the gas pressure, is usually difficult to measure directly. However, the temperature of the alkali-metal cell and the density of the alkali-metal vapor are important parameters that affect the performance of the atomic sensor. In this paper, a device that can directly measure the internal temperature of an alkali metal cell in real time is designed for the first time to explore the relationship between alkali-metal vapor density and temperature. Alkali-metal vapor density is measured using the absorption spectrum. The pressure broadening model, combined with the transition of four hyperfine levels, was used to fit the absorption line of 87Rb D1 under the action of 700 Torr N2, and a good fitting effect was obtained. The experimental results show that the density of 87Rb is less than the value calculated by the empirical formula. Based on the experimental results, we give the calculation formula of 87Rb density with an uncertainty of only 4% and obtain the temperature dependence index of the line width and linear displacement of 87Rb in N2 by analyzing the absorption spectrum.
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.
The atomic density of an alkali vapor cell is a critical factor in determining the performance of atomic magnetometers. This paper presents a novel method to detect the density of an alkali atomic ensemble under arbitrary polarization states. By establishing a comprehensive model that correlates the absorption spectrum with the incident light’s polarization, our approach enables real-time and flexible measurements across varying temperatures and polarization angles. Experimental validations are conducted by systematically rotating a quarter-wave plate and controlling the vapor cell temperature, thereby collecting transmission spectra at multiple polarizations. The results demonstrate that the proposed method simplifies density measurements while preserving high accuracy, laying a solid foundation for further research on Spin-Exchange Relaxation-Free (SERF) atomic magnetometers. This technique serves as a versatile and effective tool for in-situ monitoring of alkali metal vapor density in various sensor applications.
The number density of alkali atoms in vaper cell is an important parameter for atomic magnetometer. The vapor cell is usually heated to a high temperature for the number density exceed to 1018m−3to achieve the spin-exchange-relaxation-free (SERF) process. The optical rotation of multichannel atomic magnetometers is affected by the number density distribution. We present an effective method for monitoring and analyzing the spatial distribution homogeneity of the atomic number density in the alkali metal cell within the SERF magnetometer. The numerical results from researching the model of electric heating films and ovens show that the temperature gradient increases with an increase in the cell temperature. This causes an nonuniform number density distribution based on the saturated vapor pressure curve. We present a laser absorption spectroscopy method by using the high-resolution beam profiling camera to record the power of the beam before and after the cell. An optimized optical system of the atomic magnetometer has been established by measuring the the number density variation in the spatial distribution in mm scale. The number density variation coefficient, which is introduced to evaluate the distribution homogeneity, increases from 0.0257 to 0.0333 when the temperature of the oven wall rises from 140°C to 190 °C, showing the same trend as the simulation results. The optical rotation distribution is calculated according to the magnetometer output signal formula. This study is of great interest for optimizing the oven structure and improving the stability of atomic spin polarization and sensitivity of the multichannel magnetometer.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based (chip-scale) alkali vapor cells are key components in emerging quantum technologies, where device performance critically depends on the atomic number density. Thus, it is important to have an accurate estimate of the atomic number density in MEMS-based alkali vapor cells to optimize light-matter interactions and design efficient quantum sensing systems. Here, a quantitatively validated method is presented for determining the rubidium (Rb) atomic number density in warm vapor using Single-Pass Absorption Spectroscopy (SPAS). The absolute transmission spectra are measured and modeled using the 780.24~nm and 420.29~nm transitions in Rb-filled MEMS vapor. The theoretical model employs a density-matrix formalism within the Lindblad framework and incorporates directly measurable experimental parameters, such as laser beam power, diameter, and cell temperature. The model explicitly accounts for optical pumping, Doppler broadening, and transit-time broadening effects and exhibits quantitative agreement (>99%> 99\%>99%) with experimental spectra over a broad range of temperatures (293-353~K), laser probe powers of approximately 10~μμμW-100~μμμW at the 780.24~nm transition and 8~μμμW-80~μμμW at the 420.29~nm transition, and cell lengths (2--100~mm). This method demonstrates a practical and reliable approach for determining the density of alkali vapor cells for quantum sensing, metrology, and quantum communication applications.
In recent years, the research in the fields of quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum precision measurement has set off the "second quantum revolution" and become an international hotspot. Background cold atomic vapor density is an important parameter in the vacuum systems. At present, the methods of measuring atomic vapor density include absorption line method and fluorescence method. However, for the negative exponential relation between the atomic vapor density and the measurement results of the existing methods, it is impossible to accurately measure the lowdensity atomic vapor. Therefore, based on the principle of magneto-optical Effect and coherence detection, we propose a method to measure the atomic vapor density of rarefied alkali metals. Taking 87Rb atom as an example, under different temperature and pressure conditions, the final measured atomic vapor density range is 1.47 x 1012~5.66 × 1013 m-3. The accuracy of this method is about 3~4 orders of magnitude higher than the existing method. The method effectively solves the measurement problem of low-density atomic vapor.