Hyperfine Optical Pumping of a Cesium Atomic Beam, and Applications

A CW single-mode GaAs laser has been used to excite selectively the hyperfine components of the D2 resonance line (8521 A) in a Cs133 atomic beam. The hyperfine optical pumping was displayed by using a Rabi-type detection method. Frequency locking of the GaAs laser to individual hyperfine transitions was performed by monitoring the atomic beam fluorescence. On the basis of these experimental results, the realization of optically-pumped cesium beam frequency standards is discussed.