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arXiv:1401.7178 · Physical Review A

Stationary and quasistationary light pulses in three-level cold atomic systems

Sergey A. Moiseev, A. I. Sidorova, Byoung Seung HAM

Published Apr 1, 2014• 18 citations
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Abstract

We have studied stationary and quasistationary signal light pulses in cold \ensuremath{\Lambda}-type atomic media driven by counterpropagating control laser fields at the condition of electromagnetically induced transparency. By deriving a dispersion relation we present spectral and temporal properties of the signal light pulse and a significant influence of atomic decoherence on the coupled stationary light pulses for spatial splitting. Finally we discuss quasistationary light pulse evolution characterized by frozen spatial spreading for a robust coherent control of slow light pulses.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.043802

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We have studied stationary and quasistationary signal light pulses in cold \ensuremath{\Lambda}-type atomic media driven by counterpropagating control laser fields at the condition of electromagnetically induced transparency. By deriving a dispersion relation we present spectral and temporal properties of the signal light pulse and a significant influence of atomic decoherence on the coupled stationary light pulses for spatial splitting. Finally we discuss quasistationary light pulse evolution characterized by frozen spatial spreading for a robust coherent control of slow light pulses.
We systematically study stationary light pulses formed in cold atomic media based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with counterpropagating laser fields. In contrast to hot media, the formation of stationary light in cold media is not straightforward. Detrimental coherences of high spatial frequencies can be excited which are naturally suppressed in hot media. We demonstrate numerically that these excitations prevent the formation of stationary light in cold media. We further present numerical and experimental results which show that these excitations can be dynamically suppressed in a medium of nonstationary atoms by reducing the width of the EIT transparency window below the typical Doppler shifts present in the medium. This provides an increased interaction time of the light pulses with the medium and enhances the efficiency of nonlinear optical interactions.
We study the creation of stationary light pulses (SLPs), i.e., light pulses without motion, based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency with two counterpropagating coupling fields in cold atoms. We show that the Raman excitations created by counterpropagating probe and coupling fields prohibit the formation of SLPs in media of cold and stationary atoms such as laser-cooled atom clouds, Bose condensates or color-center crystals. A method is experimentally demonstrated to suppress these Raman excitations and SLPs are realized in laser-cooled atoms. Furthermore, we report the first experimental observation of a bichromatic SLP at wavelengths for which no Bragg grating can be established. Our work advances the understanding of SLPs and opens a new avenue to SLP studies for few-photon nonlinear interactions.
The propagation of a weak-field pulse through a medium of three-level atoms is considered. Each atom has a $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-type level scheme in which the two lower levels are stable. A strong control field drives one of the electronic transitions while the signal field drives the coupled transition under conditions where EIT (electromagnetically induced transparency) is usually operative. The input pulse is slowed and compressed as it enters the medium, adiabatically following the EIT solution. However, if the control field is changed suddenly when the pulse is in the medium, the signal field is transformed into two pulses, one of which propagates as a normal EIT pulse and the other with a different speed and an amplitude that oscillates in time. The temporal oscillations are transformed into both spatial and temporal oscillations as the pulse exits the medium. An analytic expression is derived for the pulse intensity which provides a good approximation to the exact result at all times. It is shown that the oscillating component of the exiting pulse can be spatially compressed in comparison with the input pulse.
We develop a general scheme for studying the optical response of ultracold atoms driven into a regime of standing-wave electromagnetically induced transparency. We rely on full numerical solutions of the Maxwell-Liouville equations without invoking secular and adiabatic approximations and arbitrary initial state assumptions. These approximations and assumptions can conceal, e.g., significant loss and diffusion responsible for the decay of stationary light pulses in cold atomic samples. The complex decay dynamics of a stationary light pulse is here analyzed in terms of higher-order spin and optical coherences that arise from nonlinear interactions of the stationary light pulse with the two counterpropagating components of a standing-wave driving field. Specific results for stationary light pulses in cold 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms have been discussed for temperature regimes where the residual Doppler broadening is negligible.
We investigate theoretically the propagation of a probe laser pulse through a cold sample of three-level atoms in the presence of a strong coupling field. Our numerical analysis shows that the electromagnetically induced transparency phenomenon produces very small group velocities for the probe pulse even if the three-level atomic system is open, i.e. in the presence of decay channels to levels not excited by the laser radiation. The role of the atomic momentum on the slow light propagation is briefly discussed.