This department welcomes brief communications reporting new demonstrations, laboratory equipment, techniques, or materials of interest to teachers of physics. Notes on new applications of older apparatus, measurements supplementing data supplied by manufacturers, information which, while not new, is not generally known, procurement information, and news about apparatus under development may be suitable for publication in this section. Neither the American Journal of Physics nor the Editors assume responsibility for the correctness of the information presented. Manuscripts should be submitted using the web-based system that can be accessed via the American Journal of Physics home page, http://ajp.dickinson.edu and will be forwarded to the ADN editor for consideration.

We measure sub-MHz AC Stark shifts, also known as light shifts, in an undergraduate laboratory setting using Raman pump-probe spectroscopy to observe sub-natural linewidth spectral features in the transmission spectrum of a weak probe beam passing through a sample of cold 85Rb atoms confined in a magneto-optical trap. To make this observation a pair of inexpensive fast photodiodes and acousto-optic modulators is needed, in addition to equipment commonly found in advanced undergraduate optics labs with laser cooling and atom trapping setups. A theoretical description of light shifts accessible to junior and senior-level physics majors is provided.

No abstract

No abstract