Progress towards atomic vapor photonic microcells: atomic polarization decoherence of Zeeman levels in rubidium filled HC-PCF

We report a study on de-phasing mechanisms in Rb-filled hypocycloidal core shape Kagome hollowcore photonic crystal fibers. We experimentally measure the atomic polarization relaxation rates in Rb loaded bare silica Kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fibers at six different geometries. The measurements show a polarization relaxation time ranging from from ~ 16 μs for a 30 μm core inner-diameter HC-PCF to ~34 μs for a 96 μm core inner-diameter HC-PCF. The measured polarization lifetimes are much longer than the typical transit time for the atomic vapor at room temperature. We perform the theoretical analysis of the mechanisms of atomic de-coherence taking to account the fiber geometries and further experimental parameters. The analysis demonstrates that at given experimental conditions the main contribution to the polarization rotation signal comes from the transversally slow atoms. The effective temperature of the polarized atoms is than lower than the room temperature. We perform the Monte-Carlo simulations to calculate the atomic polarization relaxation rate in fibers with different inner core radius and negative curvature parameters. The calculated values are in a good agreement with the experimental results.

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