Experimental System For Making Atomic Vapor Cells With Antirelaxation Coatings

Atomic vapor cell is a simple device to control atomic quantum states. They have been widely used in atomic clocks, atomic magnetometers, quantum and nonlinear optics, the precision tests of physical fundamental symmetries and so on. All of these applications require fine coherence of the quantum states,thus need to minimize the spin decoherence relaxation effects, namely the relaxation of atomic spin state from order to disorder.Under the condition of low gas density,The relaxation caused by atom collisions with the wall plays a leading role.In order to prevent such depolarization, vapor cells typically either contain a high pressure buffer gas or have antirelaxation coatings on the surface of inner wall. Although surface coating has several advantages, it’s relaxation mechanism is still not fully understood.The work of this thesis mainly includes the following contents:(1)Design and build an experimental system for making alkali atomic vapor cells.(2)Produce some rubidium vapor cells with antirelaxation coatings.The coating materials includes Octadecyltrichlorosilane(OTS)、Octyltrichlorosilane、Octenyltrichlorosilane and n-tetratetracontane.(3)Measure the hyperfine relaxation time of rubidium atoms in our coated cells to deduce the performance of the coating and compare the effect of different coating materials.We found that adding certain amount of water in the OTS solution helps to improve the performance and reproducibility of the OTS coated cells.