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Applied Optics

Aging test of an atomic vapor cell with Al 2 O 3 wall coating on cubic glass

Hyeonjae Kim, Taek Jeong, Sang Hyuk Hong, Jeong Bin Nam, Sangkyung Lee, Younghoon Lim, Sin Hyuk Yim

Published Aug 28, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We conducted a long-term aging test at high temperature on cubic glass rubidium vapor cells. The inner surface of the cubic glass cell was coated with Al 2 O 3 using electron beam deposition, resulting in a thickness of 26.9 nm on the side walls and 63.8 nm on the bottom surface. The rubidium number density was monitored by measuring the absorption spectrum of the D 1 line. The measured spectrum was compared with a simulated profile based on the Beer–Lambert law. The rubidium number density in the Al 2 O 3 -coated rubidium vapor cell remained constant for nearly four times longer and then decreased 4.6 times more slowly than in the uncoated rubidium vapor cell.

DOI
10.1364/ao.572036

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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.
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Abstract Glass cells containing neutral atoms are commonly employed in spectroscopy experiments and have potential applications in metrology. The temperature of the vapor plays a vital role as it directly influences the absorption rate of rubidium atoms. In this research, we study the effect of vapor temperature on the absorption spectrum of rubidium atoms. We observed the broadening of the spectral line and increased absorption, enabling us to determine the absorbance of atoms within the cell. These results provide valuable insights for our future work to characterize absorbance of homemade vapor cells for portable quantum device applications.