Cavity-enhanced detection of spin polarization in a microfabricated atomic vapor cell

Phys. Rev. Applied 21, 064014 (2024) We demonstrate continuous Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) nondestructive monitoring of the electron spin polarization of an atomic vapor in a microfabricated vapor cell within an optical resonator. The two-chamber silicon and glass cell contains $^{87}$Rb and 1.3 amagat of N$_{2}$ buffer gas, and is placed within a planar optical resonator formed by two mirrors with dichroic dielectric coatings to resonantly enhance the coupling to phase-modulated probe light near the D$_2$ line at 780 nm. We describe the theory of signal generation in this system, including the spin-dependent complex refractive index, cavity optical transfer functions, and PDH signal response to spin polarization. We observe cavity transmission and PDH signals across $\approx 200$ GHz of detuning around the atomic resonance line. By resonant optical pumping on the 795 nm D$_1$ line, we observe spin-dependent cavity line shifts, in good agreement with theory. We use the saturation of the line shift vs. optical pumping power to calibrate the number density and efficiency of the optical pumping. In the unresolved sideband regime, we observe quantum-noise-limited PDH readout of the spin polarization density, with a flat noise floor of $9 \times 10^9$ spins cm$^{-3}$ Hz$^{-1/2}$ for frequencies above 700 Hz. We note possible extensions of the technique.