Electromagnetically induced transparency is a quantum interference effect observed in atoms and molecules, in which the optical response of an atomic medium is controlled by an electromagnetic field. We demonstrated a form of induced transparency enabled by radiation-pressure coupling of an optical and a mechanical mode. A control optical beam tuned to a sideband transition of a micro-optomechanical system leads to destructive interference for the excitation of an intracavity probe field, inducing a tunable transparency window for the probe beam. Optomechanically induced transparency may be used for slowing and on-chip storage of light pulses via microfabricated optomechanical arrays.
Electromagnetically induced transparency is a quantum interference effect observed in atoms and molecules, in which the optical response of an atomic medium is controlled by an electromagnetic field. We demonstrated a form of induced transparency enabled by radiation-pressure coupling of an optical and a mechanical mode. A control optical beam tuned to a sideband transition of a micro-optomechanical system leads to destructive interference for the excitation of an intracavity probe field, inducing a tunable transparency window for the probe beam. Optomechanically induced transparency may be used for slowing and on-chip storage of light pulses via microfabricated optomechanical arrays.
We theoretically investigate a two-cavity optomechanical system in which a cavity (cavity a) couples to a mechanical resonator via radiation pressure and to another cavity (cavity c) via a common waveguide. In the excitation of a strong pump filed to cavity a, the steady-state entanglement between cavity a and c, as a quantum channel, can be generated, which provides an indirect optical pathway to excite cavity c by means of the pump filed. Quantum interference between the direct and indirect optical pathways gives rise to an optomechanically induced transparency appearing in the probe transmission of cavity c. Unlike in a typical optomechanically induced transparency effect, the electromagnetical control of the transmission is implemented by resorting to the quantum channel. Furthermore, the coupling strength of the two cavities is an important factor of the quantum channel, which can influence the width of the transparency window and the bistable behavior of the mean photon number in cavity a. We also illustrate that the electromagnetical control via quantum channel can be exploited to implement the optical switch and the slow light.
Abstract Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a quantum interference effect arising from different transition pathways of optical fields. Within the transparency window, both absorption and dispersion properties strongly change, which results in extensive applications such as slow light and optical storage. Due to the ultrahigh quality factors, massive production on a chip and convenient all‐optical control, optical microcavities provide an ideal platform for realizing EIT. Here we review the principle and recent development of EIT in optical microcavities. We focus on the following three situations. First, for a coupled‐cavity system, all‐optical EIT appears when the optical modes in different cavities couple to each other. Second, in a single microcavity, all‐optical EIT is created when interference happens between two optical modes. Moreover, the mechanical oscillation of the microcavity leads to optomechanically induced transparency. Then the applications of EIT effect in microcavity systems are discussed, including light delay and storage, sensing, and field enhancement. A summary is then given in the final part of the paper.
Abstract We investigate the optical-response properties of a coherent-mechanical pumped optomechanical system (OMS) coupled to a Λ-type three-level atomic ensemble. Due to the optomechanical and the cavity-atom couplings, the optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) phenomena could both be observed from our proposal. In the presence of a coherent mechanical pump, we show that the OMIT behavior of the probe field exhibits a phase-dependent effect, leading to the switch from OMIT to optomechanically induced absorption or amplification, while the feature of EIT remains unchanged. The distinctly different effects of the mechanical pump on OMIT and EIT behavior assure us that the absorption (amplification) and transparency of the output probe field can be simultaneously observed. Moreover, a tunable switch from slow to fast light can also be realized by tuning the phase and amplitude of the mechanical pump. In particular, the presence of the atomic ensemble can further adjust the group delay, providing additional flexibility for achieving the tunable switch.
In recent years, due to the rapid development of nano science and advanced semiconductor technology, one is able to observe more significant quantum optomechanical effects as optomechanical system turns smaller in size. Optomechanically induced transparency, fast and slow light, optical storage as well as other quantum optical and nonlinear optical effects have become the focus of research. On the other hand, the optomechanical systems coupled to other small subsystems (such as atoms, quantum dots, single electron transistors, etc.) also attract great attention in research. This is because the coupling system has not only provided more degrees of freedom for quantum manipulation, but also opened up more channels for classical and quantum information transfer. In this paper we study the optomechanically induced transparency and fast/slow light phase control in atom-assisted optomechanical cavity. Unlike the traditional systems, in this model the mechanical resonator is directly driven by a weak auxiliary driving field. We therefore find that with the change of amplitude ratio and phase difference between the auxiliary driving field and the probe field, the absorption and dispersion properties of the whole system and the group delay time vary accordingly. In the absence of auxiliary field, we observe the spectral features of the hybrid electromagnetically induced transparency and optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) in an atom-cavity-oscillator tripartite optomechanical system. When there exists no phase difference between the auxiliary field and the probe field, we find that the membrane resonance absorption is enhanced with the increase of auxiliary field strength at resonance, causing the the optomechanically induced transparency to be suppressed, and therefore we can modify the amplitude of auxiliary field to control the depth of the OMIT window. When keeping amplitude ratio between the auxiliary field and the probe field unchanged, the modification of the phase difference between the auxiliary field and the probe field directly affects the we can not only realize the manipulation of OMIT window depth, but also control the transformation of tunable optical switch among "absorption", "transparent" and "gain" of the system. Therefore, through changing the phase of auxiliary field and probe field, we can not only realize the manipulation of OMIT window depth, but also control the transformation of tunable optical switch among "absorption" , "transparent" and "gain". In the meantime, we find that the system’s group delay time varies periodically with the change of phase difference. It is worth noting that by adjusting the phase difference and the atomic number, we can not only change the magnitude of the group delay, but also realize the conversion between slow light and fast light effect.
We propose an atom-assisted cavity optomechanical system consisting of a single $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$-type three-level atom, a mechanical resonator, and a sideband-driven cavity. The analytic expression of the system's evolution is constructed under the consideration of sideband-driven fields, then steady-state solution of electromagnetically and optomechanically induced transparency and amplification is presented. In the resolved red sideband case, we demonstrate the appearance of electromagnetically and optomechanically induced transparency when the two sets of two-photon resonances are satisfied. Moreover, we set up the eigenstate structure for this atom-assisted cavity optomechanical system, which gives an explicit explanation for the mechanism of the transparency. In the resolved blue sideband case, we can achieve the controllable amplification of the probe light, which is induced by the constructive interactions of photon, atom, and phonon. The proposed scheme offers insight for the tripartite coherent interaction among photons, atoms, and phonons, which will provide great flexibility for phonon storage and motivate the development of quantum information processing.