An experimental investigation of two-color polarization spectroscopy(TCPS) is presented based on the cesium 6 S1/2– 6P3/2– 8S1/2(852.3 nm + 794.6 nm) ladder-type system in a room-temperature vapor cell. The dependency of line shapes of TCPS on the power of a 852.3 nm pump and a 794.6 nm probe laser is measured in detail, and we confirm that the linewidth of TCPS in a counter-propagating configuration between the pump and probe laser beams is obviously narrower than that of a co-propagating configuration, due to the atomic coherence effect. It is helpful for laser stabilization of the excited state transition using TCPS without frequency modulation.
We present an investigation of double-resonance optical pumping (DROP) spectra under the condition of single-photon frequency detuning based on a cesium 6S1/2-6P3/2-8S1/2 ladder-type system with a room-temperature vapor cell. Two DROP peaks are found, and their origins are explored. One peak has a narrow linewidth due to the atomic coherence for a counterpropagating configuration; the other peak has a broad linewidth, owing to the spontaneous decay for a coprop-agating configuration. This kind of off-resonant DROP spectrum can be used to control and offset-lock a laser frequency to a transition between excited states. We apply this technique to a multiphoton cesium magneto-optical trap, which can efficiently trap atoms on both red and blue sides of the two-photon resonance.