Inhomogenous Light Shifts of Coherent Population Trapping Resonances

Published

April 13, 2022

Author(s)

Juniper Pollock, Valera Yudin, Alexey Taichenachev, Maxim Basalaev, D Kovalenko, Azure Hansen, John Kitching, William McGehee

Abstract

Coherent population trapping (CPT) in atomic vapors using all-optical interrogation has enabled the miniaturization of microwave atomic clocks. Light shifts induced by the CPT driving elds can impact the spectral pro le of CPT resonances and are a common limit to the long-term stability of CPT clocks. Nonlinear light shifts have been observed in several CPT systems and have not been explored in detail. In this Letter, we demonstrate that nonlinear light shifts in CPT clocks can arise from spatially-inhomogeneous CPT driving elds. We measure this e ect using Gaussian laser beams in a bu er gas cell and show strong agreement with a 4-level model describing the CPT \Lambda-system with a noninteracting \trap" state. We estimate the effect of this nonlinearity on recently-developed light shift mitigation techniques and suggest improvements to existing techniques.

Citation

Applied Physics Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0087391

Local Download

Keywords

coherent population trapping, light shifts

Citation

Pollock, J. , Yudin, V. , Taichenachev, A. , Basalaev, M. , Kovalenko, D. , Hansen, A. , Kitching, J. and McGehee, W. (2022), Inhomogenous Light Shifts of Coherent Population Trapping Resonances, Applied Physics Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0087391, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=933968 (Accessed October 13, 2025)