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arXiv:1311.0831 · Physical Review A

Interaction-free all-optical switching at low light intensities in a multiatom cavity-QED system

Bichen Zou, Zheng Tan, Mohamed Musa, Yifu Zhu

Published Feb 5, 2014• 16 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose a scheme of the interaction-free all-optical switching in a multiatom cavity-QED system consisting of three-level atoms confined in a cavity and coupled by a free-space control laser. A signal laser field is coupled into the cavity and its transmission through and reflection from the cavity form two output channels. We show that the free-space control laser induces destructive quantum interference in the excitation of the atom-cavity normal mode, which can be used to switch on or off the output signal light of the reflection and the transmission channels. When the control light is coupled to the atoms, the input signal light is nearly totally reflected and this means that there is no direct coupling of the control light and the signal light through the cavity-confined atoms. We present analytical and numerical calculations that show that this type of the interaction-free all-optical switching in the coupled cavity-atom system can be realized with high switching efficiencies and at low light intensities.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.023806

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We report an experimental observation of all-optical switching in a cavity QED system consisting of multiple three-level atoms confined in a cavity mode. A signal light is coupled into the normal mode of the cavity-atom system and its transmission through the cavity is switched on or off by a control laser coupled to the atoms from free space. Our experiment shows that the all-optical switching in the cavity QED system can be performed for the cavity mode tuned on resonance with or off resonance from the atomic transition frequency.
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A scheme is proposed for tunable all-optical switching based on the double-dark states in a five-level atom-cavity system. In the scheme, the output signal light of the reflection and the transmission channels can be switched on or off by manipulating the control field. When the control light is coupled to the atom-cavity system, the input signal light is reflected by the cavity. Thus, there is no direct coupling between the control light and the signal light. Furthermore, the position of the double-dark states can be changed by adjusting the coherent field, and, thus, the switching in our scheme is tunable. By presenting the numerical calculations of the switching efficiency, we show that this type of the interaction-free all-optical switching can be realized with high switching efficiency.