Jau Y-Y, Miron E, Post A B, Kuzma N N, Happer W
Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Oct 15;93(16):160802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.160802. Epub 2004 Oct 13.
A new optical pumping method, "push-pull pumping," can produce very nearly pure, coherent superposition states between the initial and the final sublevels of the important field-independent 0-0 clock resonance of alkali-metal atoms. The key requirement for push-pull pumping is the use of D1 resonant light which alternates between left and right circular polarization at the Bohr frequency of the state. The new pumping method works for a wide range of conditions, including atomic beams with almost no collisions, and atoms in buffer gases with pressures of many atmospheres.
