Faraday rotation in cesium nano-layers in strong magnetic fields

Abstract

ABSTRACT We show that the Faraday rotation (FR) in strong longitudinal magnetic fields is a convenient tool to study atomic transitions by using the line in a Cs vapour confined in a nanocell of thickness \u2009nm. We use strong magnetic fields ranging from 0.1 to 6\u2009kG, in which Cs atomic transitions are split into a large number of components, and FR signals of spectral width of ∼\u200950\u2009MHz are frequency-resolved allowing the investigation of individual transitions. For magnetic fields of several kG, the hyperfine Paschen–Back regime is reached that is manifested by the presence in the spectrum of the eight FR components having the amplitudes of the same height and located with almost equidistant frequencies. A remarkable feature of FR spectrum is the proportionality of its amplitude to the probability of an atomic transition in a strong magnetic field. A theoretical model which agrees well with the experiment is developed.