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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Selective reflection spectroscopy of alkali vapors confined in nanocells and emerging sensing applications

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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. Owing to these properties and the possibility to probe thin atomic layers, we investigate atom-surface interaction and measure the C3 coefficient of the van der Waals interaction.We present a theoretical model describing the interaction of near-resonant laser light with alkali vapor-filled nanocell in the presence of an external static magnetic field. We show an excellent agreement between recorded and calculated spectra in a wide range of magnetic fields spanning from Zeeman to Paschen-Back regimes. Following these results, we propose a concept for a nanocell-based optical magnetometer. A proof of feasibility is presented and a performance analysis reveals a coefficient of variation for the magnetic field measurements less than 5% in the range 0.4 - 2 kG.