Use of a Faraday modulator in a laser polarimeter for optical forward-wave level-crossing experiments in atomic vapours

Abstract
Detection of level-crossings in forward-wave scattering of light by atomic vapours is normally accomplished by placing the sample of interest between crossed polarisers. The addition of a birefringence (Faraday) modulator between the polarisers allows not only optimisation of the signal-to-noise ratio in such experiments, but enhances the real part of the atomic susceptibility relative to the imaginary part. This has important consequences for samples having several incompletely resolved isotopic components.

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