Abstract

The Faraday Anomalous Dispersion Optical Filter (FADOF) has been recently demonstrated,¹,² The FADOF is an ultrahigh background rejection optical filter, with intrinsically wide field-of-view, fast response time, and high throughput, and is an imaging device. The FADOF consists of an atomic vapor cell, subjected to a longitudinal magnetic field, sandwiched between crossed polarizers. If the magnetic field strength, cell length, and vapor density are properly adjusted, then a narrow spectral band in the wings of the resonance lines will be transmitted through the vapor cell with high efficiency and have a polarization rotation of 90“. Because of the polarization rotation, this narrow spectral band will be transmitted by the output polarizer with high efficiency. A general theoretical model has also been developed,³ as well as theoretical calculations for several filter systems. Experiments¹ have demonstrated that the system throughput can be as high as 95%, in those same experiments, we have measured passbands of <1 GHz, and we have also measured tire out-of band rejection to be 10⁵.

© 1993 Optical Society of America