Semiclassical calculation of the power saturation of the Kerr effect in Rb vapor. II: the effect of incomplete optical pumping

Published

May 21, 2025

Author(s)

Zachary Levine

Abstract

Rubidium vapor cells play a key role in contemporary quantum optics since they have strong nonlinear interactions with low-power incident laser light. The simplest nonlinear interaction is the Kerr effect. Although most calculations concentrate on the unsaturated Kerr effect, the saturated Kerr effect has been measured in many material including 85Rb and 87Rb vapor. Here, I calculate the saturated Kerr effect for rubidium vapor at the D2 line using a density matrix formulation that includes all magnetic sublevels to account for incomplete optical pumping: the transit time of the atoms through the beam of a typical experiment is shorter than needed to reach a final configuration. In the calculation, there is 160 ns or 200 ns of exposure to the beam. Semiquantitative agreement is obtained with measured data.

Citation

Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Volume

42

Issue

6

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Saturated Kerr effect , rubidium vapor cell , nonlinear optics

Citation

Levine, Z. (2025), Semiclassical calculation of the power saturation of the Kerr effect in Rb vapor. II: the effect of incomplete optical pumping, Journal of the Optical Society of America B, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=958887 (Accessed October 17, 2025)