Current Research in Optical Pumping

摘要

In 1950, Professor Alfred Kastler described the way in which optical fields could be used to redistribute population among the Zeeman sublevels of a given atomic state. The optical pumping process discovered by Kastler continues to be a research topic of current interest. With developments in laser spectroscopy, it has become important to understand the interplay of optical pumping, transit time and collisional effects to properly interpret experimental line shapes. A brief review of the current status of the theory is given, with special emphasis on what, as yet, appear to be unresolved problems. Velocity selective optical pumping and collision-induced resonances are discussed.