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Sagnac Interferometry in a Slow-Light Medium

Graham T. Purves·Charles S. Adams·Ifan G. Hughes
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Abstract

We use a Sagnac interferometer to measure the dispersive and absorptive properties of room temperature Rubidium vapor on the D_2 line at 780.2 nm. We apply a pump beam such that the resulting Lambda system exhibits Electromagnetically Induced Transparency. Using a "biased alignment" technique we demonstrate a direct and robust method of measuring the rapid variation in the refractive index. Such a "slow-light" Sagnac interferometer is ideally suited to precision measurement applications such as magnetometry and inertial sensing.

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Graham T. Purves, Charles S. Adams, Ifan G. Hughes. 2005-12-14. Sagnac Interferometry in a Slow-Light Medium. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.74.023805

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