Saturation of atomic transitions using sub-wavelength diameter tapered optical fibers in rubidium vapor

Abstract

We experimentally investigate ultralow-power saturation of the rubidium D2 transitions using a tapered optical fiber (TOF) suspended in a warm Rb vapor. A direct comparison of power-dependent absorption measurements for the TOF system with those obtained in a standard free-space vapor cell system highlights the differences in saturation behavior for the two systems. The effects of hyperfine pumping in the TOF system are found to be minimized due to the short atomic transit times through the highly confined evanescent optical mode guided by the TOF. The TOF system data is well-fit by a relatively simple empirical absorption model that indicates nanoWatt-level saturation powers.

6 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Absolute absorption on the rubidium D lines: comparison between theory and experiment
• Low-Light-Level Optical Interactions with Rubidium Vapor in a Photonic Bandgap Fiber
• Observation of two-photon absorption at low power levels using tapered optical fibers in rubidium vapor
• Analysis of Enhanced Two-Photon Absorption in Tapered Optical Fibers

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Demonstration of a memory for tightly guided light in an optical nanofiber