Circular dichroism in atomic vapors: magnetically induced transitions responsible for two distinct behaviors
Atomic transitions of alkali metals for which the condition $F_e-F_g = \pm2$ is satisfied have null probability in a zero magnetic field, while a giant increase can occur when an external field is applied. Such transitions, often referred to as magnetically-induced (MI) transitions, have received interest because their high probabilities in wide ranges of external magnetic fields which, in some cases, are even higher than that of usual atomic transitions. Previously, the following rule was established: the intensities of MI transitions with $\Delta F=\pm2$ are maximum when using respectively $\sigma^\pm$ radiation. Within the same ground state, the difference in intensity for $\sigma^+$ and…
Circular dichroism of magnetically induced transitions for D 2 lines of alkali atoms
In this letter we study magnetic circular dichroism in alkali atoms exhibiting asymmetric behaviour of magnetically induced transitions. The magnetic field induces transitions between hyperfine levels of alkali atoms and in the range of magnetic field, the intensities of these transitions experience significant enhancement. We have inferred a general rule applicable for the D 2 lines of all alkali atoms, that is the transition intensity enhancement is around four times larger for the case of than for excitation for , whereas it is several hundreds of thousand times larger in the case of than that for polarization for . This asymmetric behaviour results in circular dichroism. For experimenta…
Stand-Off Magnetometry with Directional Emission from Sodium Vapors
International audience; Stand-off magnetometry allows measuring magnetic field at a distance, and can be employed in geophysical research, hazardous environment monitoring, and security applications. Stand-off magnetometry based on resonant scattering from atoms or molecules is often limited by the scarce amounts of detected light. The situation would be dramatically improved if the light emitted by excited atoms were to propagate towards the excitation light source in a directional manner. Here, we demonstrate that this is possible by means of mirrorless lasing. In a tabletop experiment, we detect free-precession signals of ground-state sodium spins under the influence of an external magne…
Selective reflection spectroscopy of alkali vapors confined in nanocells and emerging sensing applications
This thesis is aimed at studying the resonant interaction of a laser radiation with an atomic alkali vapor layer of wavelength-scale thickness confined in an optical nanocell; and emerging sensing applications.We focus our attention on the selective reflection arising at the interface between a dielectric window and a resonant alkali vapor, and show that the derivative of selective reflection spectra exhibit narrow resonances whose maxima are located exactly at atomic resonance frequencies. These resonances are observed with a spectral linewidth up to fifteen times smaller than the Doppler linewidth of the medium and their amplitudes scale linearly with respect to the transitions ones. Owin…