Investigation on spin relaxation of microfabricated vapor cells with buffer gas

MEMS vapor cells with buffer gas are the core components of chip scale atomic sensors due to the spin precession. We microfabricated rubidium vapor cells filled with neon based on MEMS technology and characterized the performance of MEMS vapor cells by measuring the longitudinal relaxation time. The dependence of spin relaxation time on buffer gas pressure and cell temperature was theoretically and experimentally investigated and the consistency was achieved. This provides a potential simpler approach to evaluate the performance of chip scale atomic sensors, such as atomic magnetometers, based on MEMS vapor cells.