Raman and nuclear magnetic resonance investigation of alkali metal vapor interaction with alkene-based anti-relaxation coating.

The use of anti-relaxation coatings in alkali vapor cells yields substantial performance improvements by reducing the probability of spin relaxation in wall collisions by several orders of magnitude. Some of the most effective anti-relaxation coating materials are alpha-olefins, which (as in the case of more traditional paraffin coatings) must undergo a curing period after cell manufacturing in order to achieve the desired behavior. Until now, however, it has been unclear what physicochemical processes occur during cell curing, and how they may affect relevant cell properties. We present the results of nondestructive Raman-spectroscopy and magnetic-resonance investigations of the influence …