Alkali Metal Dispenser Utilizing Scalloped Silicon Groove for Microfabricated Vapor Cells

Abstract

We propose a novel cesium (Cs) dispenser technique for filling microfabricated vapor cells with atomic Cs. The newly developed CS-dispenser composed of cesium aside (CSN3) crystal deposited on silicon (Si) grooves with multiple re-entrant structures (i.e. scalloped patterns) to enhance the thermal decomposition of Csn3. Scalloped patterns are fabricated by a sequence of isotropic and anisotropic deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). Here, the fabrication parameters are adjusted to obtain micro-size scalloped patterns. Sufficient amount of atomic Cs has been successfully observed in the microfabricated cells by a hotplate heating at about 315°C. This fabrication method enables effective thermal decomposition of Csn3 on Si substrate by low-temperature process, leading to reduce complexity of microfabricated vapor cells fabrication.