Autobalanced spectroscopy of CPT resonance in an optically dense atomic ensemble

Abstract

We investigate the influence of optical thickness on the coherent population trapping (CPT) resonance interrogated by the autobalanced Ramsey method as well as by the method of combined error signals (CESs). We analyze sensitivity of the CPT resonance to the light shift of the etalon transition for the microwave quantum frequency standards based on cold or hot atomic ensembles. When the CPT resonance is excited, two-frequency laser radiation can be significantly absorbed at the atomic transitions of the optical range. The effects of absorption and phase incursion lead to additional shift of the reference resonance. This is an additional factor that degrades the accuracy of the frequency standards because this additional shift can vary with intensity and temperature fluctuations. It was shown that the CES method is more robust in an optically dense medium than is the autobalanced Ramsey method, but it also undergoes the light shift. We found that by choosing the normalization factor of the CES method it is possible to suppress the light shift for a certain density of the medium or suppress its sensitivity to temperature fluctuations.