Determining the hyperfine structure constants of caesium 8S1/2 state aided by atomic coherence

Abstract

High-sensitivity spectroscopy of caesium's higher excited 8S1/2 state is obtained by a coherent two-photon transition via an intermediate resonance state. The ladder-type atomic system is driven by two counter-propagating low-power diode lasers, the probe laser being tuned to the transition from the ground state to the intermediate state (6S1/2–6P1/2), and the coupling laser to that between the intermediate and the final state (6P1/2–8S1/2). By locking the probe laser and scanning the coupling laser, the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) peaks appear in the probe transmission when the coupling laser resonates with each of the hyperfine levels. Compared with conventional EIT, where the signal-to-noise ratio is limited by the absorptive Doppler background, here these narrow-linewidth peaks have no Doppler background. The peak centres are well determined from theoretical fits to the experimental data. To accurately measure the 8S1/2 hyperfine structure splitting, we developed a simple method to eliminate error arising from the nonlinear frequency scanning by employing an optical waveguide phase modulator and a confocal Fabry–Perot cavity. The hyperfine structure constants of the caesium 8S1/2 state are obtained from hyperfine structure splitting measurements. Systematic effects from the ac-Stark and Zeeman shifts are studied. The measured hyperfine magnetic dipole constant A = (219.08 ± 0.12) MHz is consistent with previous results.