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arXiv:1108.1875 · Physical Review A

Nondiffracting optical beams in a three-level Raman system

Tarak Nath Dey, Jörg Evers

Published Oct 24, 2011• 27 citations
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Abstract

Diffractionless propagation of optical beams through atomic vapors is investigated. The atoms in the vapor are operated in a three-level Raman configuration. A suitably chosen control beam couples to one of the transitions, and thereby creates a spatially varying index of refraction modulation in the warm atomic vapor for a probe beam that couples to the other transition in the atoms. We show that a Laguerre-Gaussian control beam allows the propagation of single Gaussian probe field modes as well as multi-Gaussian modes and non-Gaussian modes over macroscopic distances without diffraction. This opens perspectives for the propagation of arbitrary images through warm atomic vapors.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.84.043842

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Diffractionless propagation of optical beams through atomic vapors is investigated. The atoms in the vapor are operated in a three-level Raman configuration. A suitably chosen control beam couples to one of the transitions, and thereby creates a spatially varying index of refraction modulation in the warm atomic vapor for a probe beam that couples to the other transition in the atoms. We show that a Laguerre-Gaussian control beam allows the propagation of single Gaussian probe field modes as well as multi-Gaussian modes and non-Gaussian modes over macroscopic distances without diffraction. This opens perspectives for the propagation of arbitrary images through warm atomic vapors.
We present a scheme to create an all-optical tunable and lossless waveguide using a controllable coherent Raman process in an atomic rubidium vapor in an N\mathcal{N}N-type configuration. We employ a Gaussian Raman field and a Laguerre-Gaussian control field to imprint a high-contrast tunable waveguidelike feature inside the atomic medium. We numerically demonstrate that such a waveguide is able to guide arbitrary modes of a weak probe beam to several Rayleigh lengths without diffraction and absorption. Our results on an all-optical waveguide-based scheme may have potential applications in lossless image processing, high-contrast biomedical imaging, and image metrology.
A nondiffracting propagation of an optical beam through a four-level double-V-type quantum system near a plasmonic nanostructure is investigated. We study the linear absorption and dispersion properties of the quantum system as it interacts with two laser fields. We discuss the effect of the control beam with a Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) profile on the focusing of the probe beam in the presence of a plasmonic nanostructure. An appropriately selected control beam excites one transition of the atomic system and generates a spatially varying refraction index modulation for a weak probe beam that couples to the other transition. We demonstrate that placing a plasmonic nanostructure at a nanometer distance from the atomic system and using a control field with the spatial structure leads to the diffraction-less propagation of the probe beam through the atomic system. Also, it is shown that the optical properties and probe beam focusing can be controlled by adjusting the distance of the plasmonic nanostructure from the atomic system. The proposed all-optical waveguide with high contrast and transmission can be used to implement applications such as image transfer through the medium and image processing.
We propose an efficient scheme for the generation of tunable optical waveguides based on atomic vapor in an NNN-type configuration. We exploit both control-field-induced transparency and Kerr-field-induced absorption to produce a flexible probe transparency window otherwise not feasible. We employ a suitable spatial profile of control and Kerr beams to create a high contrast refractive index modulation that holds the key to guiding a weak narrow probe beam. Further, we numerically demonstrate that high-contrast tunable waveguide permits the propagation of different modes of probe beam to several Rayleigh lengths without diffraction. This efficient guiding of narrow optical beam may have important applications in large-density image processing and high-resolution imaging.
Beam propagation beyond the paraxial approximation is studied in an optically written waveguide structure. The waveguide structure, which leads to diffractionless light propagation, is imprinted on a medium consisting of a five-level atomic vapor driven by an incoherent pump and two coherent spatially dependent control and plane-wave fields. We first study beam propagation in a single optically written waveguide and find that the paraxial approximation does not provide an accurate description of the probe propagation. We then employ coherent control fields such that two parallel and one tilted Gaussian beams produce a branched waveguide structure. The tilted beam allows selective steering of the probe beam into different branches of the waveguide structure. The transmission of the probe beam for a particular branch can be improved by changing the width of the titled Gaussian control beam as well as the intensity of the spatially dependent incoherent pump field.
We studied Fresnel diffraction of a Laguerre-Gaussian beam LGp,l{\text{LG}}_{p,l}LGp,l​ with arbitrary azimuthal lll and radial ppp indices on a grating induced during its Raman interaction with a spatially periodic pump field in an atomic medium. The diffraction pattern turned out to be more complex than the classical Talbot effect observed when a plane wave illuminates a two-dimensional grating. The simulation results show that, under certain conditions, at distances corresponding to the classical Talbot planes (integer and fractional), periodic amplitude-phase distributions appear. The diffraction patterns are not a probe-field image in the induced grating plane, but a regular array of vortex annular-shaped microbeams with an inhomogeneous intensity distribution depending on the lll and ppp indices and with a topological charge equal to that of the initial probe beam. The intensity and spatial distribution of diffraction patterns can be controlled by Raman amplification in the induced grating by varying the pump-field intensity or the Raman detuning.