Rubidium atomic line filtered (RALF) Doppler velocimetry

We report recent improvements to our Rubidium Atomic Line Filtered (RALF) Doppler velocimetry apparatus [M.E. Fajardo, C.D. Molek, and A.L. Vesely, J. Appl. Phys. 118, 144901 (2015)]. RALF is a high-velocity and high-acceleration adaptation of the Doppler Global Velocimetry method for measuring multi-dimensional velocity vector flow fields, which was developed in the 1990s by aerodynamics researchers [H. Komine, U.S. Patent #4,919,536]. Laser velocimetry techniques in common use within the shock physics community (e.g. VISAR, Fabry-Perot, PDV) decode the Doppler shift of light reflected from a moving surface via interference phenomena. In contrast, RALF employs a completely different physical principle: the frequency-dependent near-resonant optical transmission of a Rb/N2 gas cell, to encode the Doppler shift of reflected λ0 ≈ 780.24 nm light directly onto the transmitted light intensity. Thus, RALF is insensitive to minor changes to the optical pathlengths and transit times of the Doppler shifted light, ...