Atomic mixer based on phase control without ac Zeeman shift

Abstract

Atom-based mixers have been shown to be very useful in performing the absolute measurement of the magnitude of a radio-frequency (rf) field by using Autler-Townes (AT) splitting. However, there has been less success in measuring the phase of a rf field with the AT splitting in a magnetic-resonance system. The phase of the rf magnetic field plays a very important role in imaging applications. Here, we design an atomic mixer for measuring the phase of the rf field by detecting the transmission spectra of a laser-detected magnetic-resonance system based on the interference between Raman and cascade two-photon processes for ${F}_{g}=4$ of the ${D}_{1}$ line of cesium atoms. A scheme of measuring the rf phase can be realized with the elimination of the ac Zeeman shift of the system by adjusting the amplitude ratio of a transverse fundamental-wave field and its third-harmonic field. Theoretical and experimental results show that the scheme with cancellation of the ac Zeeman shift is superior in linear measurement of the longitudinal rf component. Our results provide schemes for a magnetic sensor based on quantum interference of nonlinear processes for the absolute measurement of the relative phase of rf fields.