Saturated Absorption Spectroscopy

You will use a tunable diode laser to carry out spectroscopic studies of the rubidium atom. You will measure the Doppler-broadened absorption profiles of the D2 transitions at 780 nm and then use the technique of saturated absorption spectroscopy to improve the resolution beyond the Doppler limit and measure the nuclear hyperfine splittings, which are less than 1 ppm of the wavelength. A FabryPerot optical resonator is used to calibrate the frequency scale for the measurements. Saturated absorption experiments were cited in the 1981 Nobel prize in physics and related techniques have been used in laser cooling and trapping experiments cited in the 1997 Nobel prize as well as Bose-Einstein condensation experiments cited in the 2001 Nobel prize. Although the basic principles are straightforward, you will only be able to unleash the full power of saturated absorption spectroscopy by carefully attending to many details.