{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T19:03:07Z","timestamp":1790622187783,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Optica Publishing Group","issue":"20","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790553600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1364\/OA_License_v2#VOR-OA"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790553600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/opg.optica.org\/policies\/opg-tdm-policy.json"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["opg.optica.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Opt. Express"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,5]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>We report measurements of the anisotropic optical response of an atomic medium confined in submicron-thick vapor cells using polarization spectroscopy. The technique enables systematic characterization of anisotropy as a function of cell thickness, temperature, and probe intensity. Owing to the extremely low optical density of these submicron cells, the medium remains optically transparent even at temperatures up to 250 \u00b0C, allowing operation far beyond the conventional thermal limits of vapor-cell spectroscopy. Under these conditions, we observe a dramatic enhancement of the anisotropic signal, reaching up to three orders of magnitude compared to cells of identical thickness operated at 150 \u00b0C. This giant anisotropy gives rise to pronounced sub-Doppler spectral features in the probe transmission, persisting even for subwavelength cell dimensions (L\u2044\u03bb\u22480.64). The observed behavior is attributed to the evolution of Zeeman population imbalance among ground-state sublevels in the strongly confined geometry. Our results demonstrate that submicron vapor cells provide a powerful platform for high-contrast anisotropy spectroscopy and for studying coherence phenomena in extreme confinement regimes.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1364\/oe.597451","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,2]],"date-time":"2026-07-02T18:01:35Z","timestamp":1783015295000},"page":"37660","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1364\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Confinement-enhanced polarization spectroscopy in ultrathin alkali vapors"],"prefix":"10.1364","volume":"34","author":[{"given":"Yali","family":"Carmon","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03nz8qe97","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Golan","family":"Ben-Ari","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03nz8qe97","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Amir","family":"Shemer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Azrieli College of Engineering"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yossi","family":"Danan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Azrieli College of Engineering"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7182-9762","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Eliran","family":"Talker","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03nz8qe97","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"285","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"oe-34-20-37660-R1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"472","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRev.89.472","type":"journal-article","volume":"89","author":"Dicke","year":"1953","journal-title":"Phys. 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