C P Pearman et al 2002 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 35 5141 doi:10.1088/0953-4075/35/24/315
C P Pearman, C S Adams, S G Cox, P F Griffin, D A Smith and I G Hughes
Show affiliationsWe study polarization spectroscopy of Rb vapour. A weak probe beam analyses the birefringence induced in a room temperature vapour by a strong counterpropagating circularly polarized pump beam. In contrast to most other work on polarization spectroscopy, we use a polarization beam splitting cube and two detectors (rather than a polarizer and one detector) to analyse the probe beam. The signal is in the form of a derivative of a Lorentzian. For theoretical analysis we study the closed atomic transition 5 2S1/2 (F = 3) → 5 2P3/2 (F' = 4) in the D2 line of 85Rb. We study the time needed to redistribute population among the mF states, derive an expression for the expected lineshape and present experimental data in excellent agreement with theory. The polarization spectrum provides an ideal error signal for frequency stabilization of a laser. We describe the geometry and parameters for optimizing the error signal.
32.80.Xx Level crossing and optical pumping
42.60.Lh Efficiency, stability, gain, and other operational parameters
Issue 24 (28 December 2002)
Received 23 July 2002, in final form 4 November 2002
Published 4 December 2002
C P Pearman et al 2002 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 35 5141
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