Saturation effect of atomic magnetic resonance

In this paper, we experimentally study the saturation effect of rubidium atomic magnetic resonance. A pump beam is applied to create atomic spin polarization, a radio frequency (RF) magnetic field is used to drive the spin precession about a static magnetic field, and an off-resonant linearly polarized probe beam is applied to detect the spin dynamics based on the Faraday-rotation effect. When the RF magnetic field intensity becomes strong, a saturation effect is observed. We measure the resonant peak under strong RF magnetic field driving and obtain a saturation dip as an indication of the saturation effect. Furthermore, we show that the line-width of the saturation dip is much smaller than that of magnetic resonance. Accordingly, the sensitivity of the precision measurement based on the saturation dip can be significantly improved. The relations between the saturation dip in the resonant peak and the driving RF magnetic field intensity, as well as pumping intensity, are also studied in our experiment.