Optical Transmission of an Atomic Vapor in the Mesoscopic Regime.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Peyrot, T.; Sortais, Y. R. P.; Greffet, J.-J.; Browaeys, A.; Sargsyan, A.; Keaveney, J.; Hughes, I. G.; Adams, C. S.
- Source
- Physical Review Letters. 3/22/2019, Vol. 122 Issue 11, p1-1. 1p.
- Subject
- *LIGHT transmission
*GASES
- Language
- ISSN
- 0031-9007
By measuring the transmission of near-resonant light through an atomic vapor confined in a nanocell we demonstrate a mesoscopic optical response arising from the nonlocality induced by the motion of atoms with a phase coherence length larger than the cell thickness. Whereas conventional dispersion theory--where the local atomic response is simply convolved by the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution--is unable to reproduce the measured spectra, a model including a nonlocal, size-dependent susceptibility is found to be in excellent agreement with the measurements. This result improves our understanding of light-matter interaction in the mesoscopic regime and has implications for applications where mesoscopic effects may degrade or enhance the performance of miniaturized atomic sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]