Enhanced sensitivity of a passive optical cavity by an intracavity dispersive medium
- Spacecraft and Vehicle Systems Department, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, EV43, Huntsville, Alabama 35812 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899 (United States)
- Department of Natural and Physical Sciences (Chemistry), Alabama A and M University, Normal, Alabama 35762 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, 800 Yale Boulevard, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 (United States)
The pushing of the modes of a Fabry-Perot cavity by an intracavity rubidium cell is measured. The scale factor of the modes is increased by the anomalous dispersion and is inversely proportional to the sum of the effective group index and an additional cavity delay factor that arises from the variation of the Rb absorption over a free spectral range. This additional positive feedback further increases the effect of the anomalous dispersion and goes to zero at the lasing threshold. The mode width does not grow as fast as the scale factor as the intracavity absorption is increased resulting in enhanced measurement sensitivities. For absorptions larger than the scale factor pole, the atom-cavity response is multivalued and mode splitting occurs.
- OSTI ID:
- 21313190
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 80, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.80.011809; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Temporal modulation instabilities of counterpropagating waves in a finite dispersive Kerr medium. II. Application to Fabry{endash}Perot cavities
Traveling wave model of a multimode Fabry-Perot laser in free running and external cavity configurations