Optical preparation and measurement of atomic coherence at gigahertz bandwidth

We detail a method for the preparation of atomic coherence in a high density atomic medium, utilising a coherent preparation scheme of gigahertz bandwidth pulses. A numerical simulation of the preparation scheme is developed, and its efficiency in preparing coherent states is found to be close to unity at the entrance to the medium. The coherence is then measured non-invasively with a probe field.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Polarization spectroscopy of an excited state transition.

We demonstrate polarization spectroscopy of an excited state transition in room-temperature cesium vapor. An anisotropy induced by a circularly polarized pump beam on the D2 transition is observed using a weak probe on the 6P3/2→7S1/2 transition. At high pump power, a subfeature due to Autler-Townes splitting is observed that theoretical modeling shows is enhanced by Doppler averaging. Polarization spectroscopy provides a simple modulation–free signal suitable for laser frequency stabilization to excited state transitions

ElecSus: Extension to arbitrary geometry magneto-optics

We present a major update to ElecSus, a computer program and underlying model to calculate the electric susceptibility of an alkali-metal atomic vapour. Knowledge of the electric susceptibility of a medium is essential to predict its absorptive and dispersive properties. In this version we implement several changes which significantly extend the range of applications of ElecSus, the most important of which is support for non-axial magnetic fields (i.e. fields which are not aligned with the light propagation axis). Supporting this change requires a much more general approach to light propagation in the system, which we have now implemented. We exemplify many of these new applications by comparing ElecSus to experimental data. In addition, we have developed a graphical user interface front-end which makes the program much more accessible, and have improved on several other minor areas of the program structure