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arXiv:1505.00258 · Physical Review A

Photon trapping in cavity quantum electrodynamics

G. S. Agarwal, Yifu Zhu

Published Aug 14, 2015• 34 citations
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Abstract

We propose and analyze a scheme for photon trapping in an optical resonator coupled with two-level atoms. We show that when the cavity is excited by two identical light fields, one from each end of the cavity, the output light from the cavity is suppressed while the intracavity light field is nearmaximum due to the excitation of the polariton state of the coupled cavity and atom system. We also present methods for the direct probing of the trapped polariton state. The photon trapping is manifested by the destructive interference of the transmitted light and the incident light, which is conditioned on the presence of incoherent processes such as spontaneous decay of the atomic excitation of the polariton state. Such photon trapping is quite generic and should be observable experimentally in a variety of cavity quantum electrodynamics systems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.92.023824

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We propose and analyze a scheme for photon trapping in an optical resonator coupled with two-level atoms. We show that when the cavity is excited by two identical light fields, one from each end of the cavity, the output light from the cavity is suppressed while the intracavity light field is nearmaximum due to the excitation of the polariton state of the coupled cavity and atom system. We also present methods for the direct probing of the trapped polariton state. The photon trapping is manifested by the destructive interference of the transmitted light and the incident light, which is conditioned on the presence of incoherent processes such as spontaneous decay of the atomic excitation of the polariton state. Such photon trapping is quite generic and should be observable experimentally in a variety of cavity quantum electrodynamics systems.
We propose and analyze a scheme for controlling coherent photon transmission and reflection in a cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (CQED) system consisting of an optical resonator coupled with three-level atoms coherently prepared by a control laser from free space. When the control laser is off and the cavity is excited by two identical light fields from two ends of the cavity, the two input light fields can be completely absorbed by the CQED system and the light energy is converted into the excitation of the polariton states, but no light can escape from the cavity. Two distinct cases of controlling the perfect photon absorption are analyzed: (a) when the control laser is tuned to the atomic resonance and creates electromagnetically induced transparency, the perfect photon absorption is suppressed and the input light fields are nearly completely transmitted through the cavity; (b) when the control laser is tuned to the polariton state resonance and inhibits the polariton state excitation, the perfect photon absorption is again suppressed and the input light fields are nearly completely reflected from the cavity. Thus, the CQED system can act as a perfect absorber or near-perfect transmitter and/or reflector by simply turning the control laser off or on. Such interference control of the coherent photon-atom interaction in the CQED system should be useful for a variety of applications in optical logical devices.
It has been shown that perfect photon absorption can occur in the linear excitation regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), in which photons from two identical light fields coupled into two ends of the cavity are completely absorbed and result in excitation of the polariton state of the CQED system. The output light from the cavity is totally suppressed by destructive interference and the polariton state can only decay incoherently back to the ground state. Here we analyze perfect photon absorption and the onset of optical bistability in the nonlinear regime of the CQED and show that perfect photon absorption persists in the nonlinear regime of the CQED below the threshold of optical bistability. Therefore perfect photon absorption is a phenomenon that can be observed in both linear and nonlinear regimes of CQED. Furthermore, our study reveals that optical bistability is influenced by input-light interference and can be manipulated by varying the relative phase of the two input fields.
I analyze a scheme that is capable of producing large Kerr nonlinearities on cavity-atom polaritons in a cavity quantum electrodynamics system consisting of multiple three-level atoms confined in a cavity mode. A weak control laser coupled to the atoms from free space induces destructive quantum interference in the polariton excitation of the coupled cavity-atom system and creates large Kerr nonlinearities on the intra-cavity light field. The scheme can be used for optical switching or cross-phase modulation of the cavity-atom polariton at ultralow light levels.
I analyze an all-optical switching scheme in a cavity QED system consisting of multiple three-level atoms confined in a cavity mode. A control laser coupled to the atoms from free space induces quantum interference in the coupled cavity-atom system and performs all optical switching of the cavity-atom polaritons. When the cavity is tuned far away from the atomic resonance, the cavity-atom polariton consists of nearly pure photonic excitation and then the scheme can be used for photon switching at low light intensities.
We study a cavity quantum electrodynamics system in which a cavity mode couples simultaneously with two separate transitions of three-level atoms, and show that three polariton states are created in the coupled cavity-atom system. We report the observation of such polariton states in an experiment with cold Rb atoms confined in a cavity. The experimental results agree with theoretical calculations based on a semiclassical analysis. The three-level cavity-atom system may be used for a variety of fundamental studies and practical applications.
Two recent experiments have reported the trapping of individual atoms inside optical resonators by the mechanical forces associated with single photons [Hood et al., Science 287, 1447 (2000); Pinkse et al., Nature (London) 404, 365 (2000)]. Here we analyze the trapping dynamics in these settings, focusing on two points of interest. First, we investigate the extent to which light-induced forces in these experiments are distinct from their free-space counterparts, and whether or not there are qualitatively different effects of optical forces at the single-photon level within the setting of cavity QED. Second, we explore the quantitative features of the resulting atomic motion, and how these dynamics are mapped onto experimentally observable variations of the intracavity field. Toward these ends, we present results from extensive numerical simulations of the relevant forces and their fluctuations, as well as a detailed derivation of our numerical simulation method, based on the full quantum-mechanical master equation. Not surprisingly, qualitatively distinct atomic dynamics arise as the coupling and dissipative rates are varied. For the experiment of Hood et al., we show that atomic motion is largely conservative and is predominantly in radial orbits transverse to the cavity axis. A comparison with the free-space theory demonstrates that the fluctuations of the dipole force are suppressed by an order of magnitude. This effect is based upon the Jaynes-Cummings eigenstates of the atom-cavity system and represents distinct physics for optical forces at the single-photon level within the context of cavity QED. By contrast, even in a regime of strong coupling in the experiment of Pinkse et al., there are only small quantitative distinctions between the potentials and heating rates in the free-space theory and the quantum theory, so it is not clear that a description of this experiment as a novel single-quantum trapping effect is necessary. The atomic motion is strongly diffusive, leading to an average localization time comparable to the time for an atom to transit freely through the cavity, and to a reduction in the ability to infer aspects of the atomic motion from the intracavity photon number.