Abstract
We measure the resonance line shape of atomic vapor layers with nanoscale thickness confined between two sapphire windows. The measurement is performed by scanning a probe laser through resonance and collecting the scattered light. The line shape is dominated by the effects of Dicke narrowing, self-broadening, and atom-surface interactions. By fitting the measured line shape to a simple model we discuss the possibility to extract information about the atom-surface interaction.
Highlights
Atomic alkali-metal vapor cells are widely used in applications ranging from magnetometry [1], sources of quantum light [2], electric-field imaging [3], atomic clocks [4], nanophotonics [5], optical isolators [6], and quantum memory [7]
The Results section presents fitting results for spectra taken on the Rb D2 line and the Cs D1 line, where we find that to describe spectra in the length range investigated the van der Waals description of the AS interaction is optimal
Unlike other experiments that map out the AS interaction using peak shift measurements, we choose to investigate the AS interaction by fitting a full line shape which is most sensitive to smaller AS distances
Summary
Atomic alkali-metal vapor cells are widely used in applications ranging from magnetometry [1], sources of quantum light [2], electric-field imaging [3], atomic clocks [4], nanophotonics [5], optical isolators [6], and quantum memory [7]. The tight confinement of the atoms inside nanocells opens up opportunities to study the interaction of atoms with a nearby surface, explored using spectroscopy on both low-lying [20] and higher-lying excited states [21] or EIT spectroscopy of highly excited Rydberg states [22] This can be expanded to investigate the temperature dependence of the coefficients describing the strength of the atom-surface (AS) interaction [23] and cases where the usually attractive AS interaction becomes repulsive due to surface resonances [17]. We describe an experiment that takes many absorption spectra over a range of temperatures and cell lengths, and uses fitting and error analysis to precisely measure the general form of the AS interaction within the near field.
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