Metastable helium Faraday filter for helium lidar to measure the density of the thermosphere

We demonstrate a metastable helium Faraday optical filter operating on the 2³S₁ - 2³P₁ and 2³S₁ - 2³P₂ transition at 1083 nm by using a 3 cm long helium cell. The influence of the magnetic field and gas pressure of the helium cell on the filter characteristics is experimental studied. When the magnetic field is 230 Gs and the gas pressure of helium cell is about 110 Pa, the peak transmission corresponding to the two energy level transitions is about 32% and 57%, respectively. The equivalent noise bandwidth (ENBW) under this working condition is about 1.9 GHz. The metastable helium Faraday filter can be used to improve the optical inefficiency of a helium resonance fluorescence lidar to achieve the metastable helium density detection at 200-1000 km thermosphere.