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arXiv:1012.1487 · Optics Letters

Delayed four- and six-wave mixing in a coherently prepared atomic ensemble

D. Felinto, D. Moretti, R. A. de Oliveira, J. W. R. Tabosa

Published Nov 19, 2010• 14 citations
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Abstract

We report on the simultaneous observation, by delayed Bragg diffraction, of four- and six-wave mixing processes in a coherently prepared atomic ensemble consisting of cold cesium atoms. For each diffracted order, we observe different temporal pulse shapes and dependencies with the intensities of the exciting fields, evidencing the different mechanisms involved in each process. The various observations are well described by a simplified analytical theory, which considers the atomic system as an ensemble of three-level atoms in Λ configuration.

DOI
10.1364/ol.35.003937

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We report on the simultaneous observation, by delayed Bragg diffraction, of four- and six-wave mixing processes in a coherently prepared atomic ensemble consisting of cold cesium atoms. For each diffracted order, we observe different temporal pulse shapes and dependencies with the intensities of the exciting fields, evidencing the different mechanisms involved in each process. The various observations are well described by a simplified analytical theory, which considers the atomic system as an ensemble of three-level atoms in Λ configuration.
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We report an experimental study of resonant six-wave mixing in coherently prepared Rb atoms. Electromagnetically induced transparency in a four-level atomic system suppresses the linear susceptibility and enhances the nonlinear susceptibilities, which leads to the resonantly enhanced, slow-photon six-wave mixing at low light intensities. The light emission in the six-wave mixing process can be viewed as resulting from diffraction of slow light off a resonant nonlinear grating induced in the four-level system by a standing-wave pump field.
A three-beam configuration is used to investigate the spectrally resolved wave-mixing signal of a ZnSe single quantum well. The spectrum recorded in direction 2 k2–k1 shows coherent oscillations induced by a delayed third pulse with direction k3. Intensity and polarization-dependent measurements indicate that the signal is generated by a combination of four- and six-wave mixing. The origin of the oscillations can be explained qualitatively by a two-level model. The polarization-dependent experimental results require the treatment of many-body correlations and are well explained by microscopic calculations including four-particle correlations up to fifth order in the fields.
We report on the delay of optical pulses using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in an ensemble of cold atoms with an optical depth exceeding 500. To identify the regimes in which four-wave mixing (4WM) impacts on EIT behaviour, we conduct the experiment in both 85 Rb and 87 Rb. Comparison with theory shows excellent agreement in both isotopes. In 87 Rb negligible 4WM was observed and we obtained one pulse-width of delay with 50% efficiency. In 85 Rb 4WM contributes to the output. In this regime we achieve a delay-bandwidth product of 3.7 at 50% efficiency, allowing temporally multimode delay, which we demonstrate by compressing two pulses into the memory medium.