Linewidth in saturated absorption spectroscopy for two-level atoms: an empirical formula

Appl Opt. 2018 May 10;57(14):3881-3883. doi: 10.1364/AO.57.003881.

Abstract

We present an empirical formula for linewidth in saturated absorption spectroscopy for two-level atoms with cycling transition lines, taking the coherence term in the Doppler-broadened limit into account. The full width at half-maximum is obtained as (1+(1+as0)bt, where s0 is the on-resonance saturation parameter, γt is the transverse decay rate, and a and b are the parameters that depend on γt. We find that as γt increases, a and b approach 1 and 1/2, respectively. These are the typical values in the case without the coherence term.