Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Wafer-scale fabrication of evacuated alkali vapor cells

Published

Author(s)

Yang Li, Matthew Hummon, Susan Schima, John Kitching, DONGGYU SOHN

Abstract

We describe a process for fabricating a wafer-scale array of alkali metal vapor cells with low residual gas pressure. We show that by etching long, thin channels between the cells on the Si wafer surface, the residual gas pressure in the evacuated vapor cell can be reduced to below 0.5 kPa (4 Torr) with a yield above 50 %. The low residual gas pressure in these mass-producible alkali vapor cells can enable a new generation of low-cost chip-scale atomic devices such as vapor cell optical clocks, wavelength references, and Rydberg sensors.
Citation
Optics Letters
Volume
49
Issue
17

Citation

Li, Y. , Hummon, M. , Schima, S. , Kitching, J. and SOHN, D. (2024), Wafer-scale fabrication of evacuated alkali vapor cells, Optics Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.527351, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957651 (Accessed April 1, 2025)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created August 28, 2024, Updated February 11, 2025