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arXiv:1901.05156 · Annalen der Physik

All‐Optical Transmission Modulation Due to Inelastic Interactions of Ultrashort Pulses in a Disordered Resonant Medium

Denis V. Novitsky, Alexander Sergeevich Shalin

Published Jan 15, 2019• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Random resonant media being one of the possible realizations of disordered metamaterials open a room of opportunities for achieving new fundamental effects and designing advanced nanophotonic devices. Strongly nonlinear optical properties of such media attract ever increasing attention nowadays from both theoretical and experimental points of view. Hereinafter, the case of the photonic‐crystal‐like structure with a randomly varying light–matter coupling provided by the random density of quantum particles is considered. Using numerical solution of the Maxwell–Bloch equations, the effects of the pulse collisions in the medium are studied. It is shown that disorder enables the qualitative changes of the system's response for co‐propagating pulses, whereas this is not the case for the counter‐propagating ones. The scheme for an all‐optical transmission modulation due to the disorder‐induced inelasticity of collisions of co‐propagating pulses is proposed. The ability of precise tuning the modulation via the inter‐pulse distance and background refractive index adjustment is revealed. This novel approach for light control can be utilized for some high demand applications, such as modulation and switching of a pulsed radiation.

DOI
10.1002/andp.201800405

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Abstract Random resonant media being one of the possible realizations of disordered metamaterials open a room of opportunities for achieving new fundamental effects and designing advanced nanophotonic devices. Strongly nonlinear optical properties of such media attract ever increasing attention nowadays from both theoretical and experimental points of view. Hereinafter, the case of the photonic‐crystal‐like structure with a randomly varying light–matter coupling provided by the random density of quantum particles is considered. Using numerical solution of the Maxwell–Bloch equations, the effects of the pulse collisions in the medium are studied. It is shown that disorder enables the qualitative changes of the system's response for co‐propagating pulses, whereas this is not the case for the counter‐propagating ones. The scheme for an all‐optical transmission modulation due to the disorder‐induced inelasticity of collisions of co‐propagating pulses is proposed. The ability of precise tuning the modulation via the inter‐pulse distance and background refractive index adjustment is revealed. This novel approach for light control can be utilized for some high demand applications, such as modulation and switching of a pulsed radiation.
Abstract Different optical nanostructures containing both loss and gain components attract ever‐increasing attention as novel advanced materials and building blocks for a variety of nanophotonic and plasmonic applications. Unique tunable optical signatures of the so‐called active metamaterials support their utilization for sensing, imaging, and signal processing on micro‐ and nanoscales. However, this tunability requires flexible control over the metamaterial parameters, which could be provided by involving a set of nonlinear interactions. In this paper, a method of governing ultrashort pulses is proposed by varying the level of a population difference disorder in a random active metamaterial. This enables us to deliver three different interaction regimes: self‐induced transparency (low disorder), localization regime (moderate disorder), and light amplification (strong disorder) corresponding to strongly different light pulse speeds. Since this control could be realized via rather plain tools, like simple pump tuning, the proposed disordered medium opens a room of opportunities for designing a peculiar active component for a whole set of highly demanded optical applications.
The resonant absorption, emission, and scattering of light are the fundamental optical processes that have been used both to probe matter and to manipulate light itself. In the last decade there has been essential progress in coherent control of both linear and nonlinear optical responses based on resonant excitation of atomic coherence in multilevel quantum systems. Some interesting and useful phenomena, resulting from coherent control of absorption and the group index, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without inversion, and ultra-slow group velocity of light have been widely studied. This work is focused on coherent control of refractive index and resonant fluorescence in multilevel medium. \n \nWe suggest two promising schemes for resonant enhancement of the refractive index with eliminated absorption and propose their implementation in transition element doped crystals with excited state absorption and in a cell of Rb atoms at natural abundance. We show how to use one of these schemes for spatial variation of the refractive index via its periodic resonant increase/decrease, remarkably keeping at the same time zero absorption/gain. It opens the way to production of transparent photonic structures (such as distributed Bragg reflectors, holey fibers, or photonic crystals) in a homogeneous resonant atomic media such as dielectrics with homogeneously distributed impurities, atomic, or molecular gases. These optically produced photonic structures could easily be controlled (including switching on/off, changing amplitude and period of modulation) and would be highly selective in frequency, naturally limited by the width of the optical resonance. \n \nWe also derive the optical fluorescence spectra of a three-level medium driven by two coherent fields at the adjacent transitions in a general case when all three transitions are allowed. We show that coherent driving can efficiently control the distribution of intensities between the fluorescent channels. In particular, the total intensity of fluorescence at the transition which is not driven by the optical fields may essentially exceed the fluorescence intensity at the driven transitions under the condition of two-photon resonance. This counter-intuitive effect is due to depletion of the intermediate state via atomic interference.
We propose a concept of disordered resonant media, which are characterized by random variations of their parameters along the light propagation direction. In particular, a simple model of disorder considered in the paper implies random change of the density of active particles (two-level atoms). Within this model, the effect of disorder on self-induced transparency (SIT) is analyzed using numerical simulations of light pulse propagation through the medium. The transition from the SIT to localization regime is revealed as well as its dependence on the disorder level, atom density, medium thickness, and period of random variations.
The study of optical effects in active media is rich with unexpected consequences. For instance, one may imagine that absorption and amplification in a dielectric medium will exhibit some sort of symmetry because both are related to the same imaginary part of the dielectric constant, except for a sign change. It turns out that such a symmetry does not exist [1]. This issue has also been investigated in detail for random or disordered gain media, with varying viewpoints [2]. Traditionally, much of the research on amplifying media has considered the interaction of light within the entire volume of such a medium. Recent interest in metamaterials and other esoteric structures in which plasmons are used to manipulate optical signals has brought attention to the role of surface waves in active dielectrics [3, 4]. From a fundamental perspective, the main difference between active and passive media is that spontaneous emission cannot be avoided in gain media. As a result, a rigorous analysis of gain media demands a quantum-mechanical treatment. Spontaneous emission in a gain medium depends not only on the material properties of that medium but also on the optical modes supported by the structure containing that material [5]. By a clever design of this structure (e.g., photonic crystals or microdisk resonators with a metallic cladding), it is possible to control the local density of optical modes and the spontaneous emission process itself. In Chapter 4, we discuss how to model a gain medium under such conditions by deploying optical Bloch equations.