Birefringence-Modulated Polarization Spectroscopy

Abstract
The aim of this work was to develop a high-resolution, ultra-sensitive laser method that makes use of a Faraday modulator in a polarization spectroscopy arrangement. Though saturation spectroscopy is not a sensitive technique, polarization spectroscopy is a useful technique for obtaining both high resolution and high sensitivity. However, spectral line shapes are distorted. Our proposed birefringence-modulated polarization spectroscopy has additional advantages in sensitivity and symmetry of the line shape over saturation and polarization spectroscopy. The spectra of the sodium D1 line have been calculated in order to compare the various spectroscopic techniques.