2010/01/03 by A. Ben-Kish, Michael Romalis, M. V. Romalis · 83 citations
Chemistry · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Buffer gas #Chemistry #Electromagnetically induced transparency #Excitation #Laser #Magnetic field #Magnetometer #Materials science #Optics #Physics #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Population #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Zeeman effect #physics.atom-ph #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.193601
published in Physical Review Letters 105(19), 193601 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2010/01/03 · openalex publication_date 2010/11/04 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Atomic magnetometers have very high absolute precision and sensitivity to magnetic fields but suffer from a fundamental problem: the vectorial or tensorial interaction of light with atoms leads to "dead zones," certain orientations of the magnetic field where the magnetometer loses its sensitivity. We demonstrate a simple polarization modulation scheme that simultaneously creates coherent population trapping (CPT) in orientation and alignment, thereby eliminating dead zones. Using 87Rb in a 10 Torr buffer gas cell we measure narrow, high-contrast CPT transparency peaks for all orientations and also show the absence of systematic effects associated with nonlinear Zeeman splitting.