Mini-cells
The construction of tiny glass cells for atomic spectroscopy is of great interest due to its applications in devices such as watches or miniaturized atomic magnetometers. These cells require a high vacuum and very high purity of the small atomic sample. The methods currently used to build cells with millimeter dimensions are extremely complex and require expensive and sophisticated production systems.
We recently demonstrated the possibility of miniaturizing glass spectroscopic cells in a very simple way. Our novel process starts from a macroscopic mother cell that is subdivided into small daughter cells, without harming the high vacuum of the cells or deteriorating the purity of the atomic vapor [Lal21]. This work also motivated the development of a novel method to measure, by spectroscopic methods, the presence of traces of impurities in an ultra-pure atomic vapor [Lal21].
