Demonstration of optical pumping using a micro-fabricated Rb dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) lamp

Recently, a low-power, mm-scale (~0.3 cm3) Rb dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) lamp was demonstrated, in view of the development of a chip-scale atomic clock based on the traditional double-resonance (DR) interrogation scheme. Here, we report on the demonstration of optical pumping in a micro-fabricated Rb vapor cell (~0.3 cm3), using such a DBD Rb lamp as a pump light source. As a first step, we demonstrate Zeeman optical pumping in the Mz magnetometer configuration and observe the DR error signals. Comparative studies between DBD lamp and glass-blown (GB) lamp on the intensity noise and the DR error signals were performed. These results show that the performances of DBD lamp are comparable to those of a conventional glass-blown lamp, which indicates a high potential of the DBD lamp for the development of miniature atomic clocks, magnetometers and quantum sensors.