Events on Thursday, July 14th, 2016
- Atomic Physics Seminar
- Vector light shift in optical atomic magnetometers with alkali atoms
- Time: 11:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Lena Zhivun, Berkeley
- Abstract: Optical atomic magnetometers are among the most precise magnetic sensors today, reaching sensitivities up to 0.16 fT/sqrt(Hz). While the AC Stark effect is one of the noise sources in atomic magnetometers, it can be utilized to improve these devices. The effect of the vector part of the AC Stark operator on alkali atoms is equivalent to applying a magnetic field in the direction of the light propagation. We use this effect to create an all-optical vector magnetometer with 0.2 pT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity to the field magnitude and 4 mrad/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity to the field direction, as well as a scalar magnetometer driven by a fictitious rf field with 40 fT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity.
- Host: Walker