Atomic spectral line shapes from selective reflection laser spectroscopy

Selective reflection spectroscopy at an interface with a low density resonant vapor, combined with a frequency modulation technique (FM‐SR) is a high resolution Doppler‐free method for probing atoms interacting with a surface. We analyze the spectral consequences of the van der Waals‐London attraction potential between the atomic dipole and its instantaneous image.We show that FM‐SR provides a way to analyze separately for each hyperfine component, collisional processus on a resonance line.Finally, we present a new formulation for the van der Waals interaction between a dispersive dielectric surface and an atom in an arbitrary internal energy state. We show that for excited atoms with dipole couplings in emission, giant surface attraction or repulsion is predicted much larger than for perfect reflector.