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Acta Physica Polonica A

Low-Speed and Suspended Propagation of Light Pulses in Atomic Medium with Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

D. Dziczek, Bernard Zietek, Stanisław Chwirot

Published Jul 1, 2004• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Experiments on hot rubidium vapor as an atomic medium with electromagnetically induced transparency for radiation of 795 nm wavelength (D1 absorption line of rubidium) are reported.Propagation of light pulses with velocity reduced to 11.5 km/s has been observed with a significant modification of the shape of square input pulses to adapt to the spectral window of induced transparency.So-called light storage, i.e. suspension of the propagation of light pulses in the medium by temporary turn-off of the electromagnetically induced transparency state was also demonstrated."Storage" periods of several microseconds, limited by relatively fast relaxation of atomic spin polarization in the volume of interaction of atoms with radiation, were obtained.

DOI
10.12693/aphyspola.106.13

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Experiments on hot rubidium vapor as an atomic medium with electromagnetically induced transparency for radiation of 795 nm wavelength (D1 absorption line of rubidium) are reported.Propagation of light pulses with velocity reduced to 11.5 km/s has been observed with a significant modification of the shape of square input pulses to adapt to the spectral window of induced transparency.So-called light storage, i.e. suspension of the propagation of light pulses in the medium by temporary turn-off of the electromagnetically induced transparency state was also demonstrated."Storage" periods of several microseconds, limited by relatively fast relaxation of atomic spin polarization in the volume of interaction of atoms with radiation, were obtained.
Recent years have observed fast developments in neutral atomic vapor based quantum information storage technology. The technique utilizes light fields in the optical wavelength region as signal carrier and retriever and neutral atomic systems (e.g. single atoms, ensembles of atoms, atom-like defects in solids) as storage media. Photons are robust carriers of information due to their high velocity (c = 2.998 x 108 m/s) and ease of transportation (they propagate rectilinearly with low loss). Their high mobility, however, makes it a challenging task to spatially localize and therefore store them. Atoms (or atom-like systems), on the other hand, can be easily localized in space while providing quantum states accessible to photons and therefore are ideal candidates for storage media. Electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) is a light-induced atomic coherence phenomenon that dramatically modifies the optical properties of an atomic medium to a weak probe field by the application of a strong coupling field. As a probe pulse propagates in an EIT medium it experiences ultraslow group velocity and generates a copropagating spin wave. These consequences of EIT can be exploited for light pulse storage and retrieval in an atomic medium.
The dynamics of resonant light propagation in rubidium vapor in a cell with antirelaxation wall coating are investigated. We change the polarization of the input light and measure the time dependence of the polarization after the cell. The observed dynamics are shown to be analogous to those in electromagnetically induced transparency. Spectral dependence of light pulse delays is found to be similar to that of nonlinear magneto-optic rotation. Delays up to $\ensuremath{\approx}13\mathrm{ms}$ are observed, corresponding to a 8m/s8\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}8m/s group velocity. Fields of a few microgauss are used to control the group velocity.
This thesis set out to investigate light storage based on dynamic electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a room-temperature atomic ensemble of rubidium as a means to provide a quantum memory for single-photons created by a single rubidium atom coupled to a high-finesse optical resonator. Setting up the light storage medium presented a new addition to the research group's portfolio of experimental techniques and led to investigations of EIT, slow light and stored light in warm rubidium-87 vapour. Lambda level schemes connecting Zeeman or hyperfine substates on the D1 and D2 lines were addressed in rubidium vapour cells containing different buffer gases and different isotopic fractions of rubidium-87 and rubidium-85. Single beam spectroscopy with a weak probe was used to characterise the vapour cells. A numerical method to fit the D line spectrum to a theoretical model to include isotopic fractions and collisional broadening of a buffer gas has been implemented. Temperature and isotopic fractions could be reliably extracted from the fit parameters. For an offset-stabilisation of two lasers to address a lambda level scheme connecting the two different hyperfine groundstates in rubidium a phase locked loop including a frequency divider has been designed and implemented. Light storage and retrieval has been demonstrated using a Zeeman scheme on the D1 line. Two microsecond long classical light pulses containing one million photons on average were stored and retrieved with an efficiency of 15% after a delay of one microsecond. Several methods of attenuating the strong co-propagating control laser beam to allow for lowering the signal pulse intensity in future experiments are discussed.
It was shown by Kocharovskaya and Khanin [Sov. Phys. JETP 63, 945 (1986)] that a comb of optical pulses can induce a ground-state atomic coherence and change the optical response of an atomic medium. In our experiment, we studied the propagation of a comb of optical pulses produced by a mode-locked diode laser in rubidium atomic vapor. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) was observed when the pulse repetition rate is a subharmonic of the hyperfine splitting of the ground state. The width of the EIT resonance is determined by the relaxation rate of the ground-state coherence. Possible applications to magnetometery, atomic clocks, and frequency chains are discussed.
Electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of atomic medium interacting with two laser beams can exhibit effects of reciprocal influence of both beams on optical properties of the medium. If the probe beam reaches instantaneous intensity comparable to that of the control beam, considerable energy is transferred to the latter. Resulting increase in the control-beam intensity temporarily modifies EIT conditions and consequently affects propagation of probe-beam pulses. The effect is particularly strong in atomic media exhibiting significant dissipation of radiation energy due to relaxation processes efficiently counteracting the optical pumping. Coherent interaction of atoms with both beams causes reduction of dissipation of the control beam (reciprocal EIT conditions). Our experiments with hot rubidium vapor demonstrate the possibility of dual control over slow propagation of light pulses in such media. Besides the well-known dependence on input control-beam intensity, the delays of output probe pulses depended significantly also on the energy of input probe pulses. Moreover, for relatively short input pulses, very specific shape of output pulses was observed, invariant in wide ranges of input probe pulse energies and control-beam intensities. The shapes of the output pulses were also the same for short input pulses of different shapes as well as for pulses temporarily stored in the medium by switching off the control beam during their propagation.
Storage of light pulses in Rb vapour with bright Zeeman coherences and the associated enhanced absorption and steep negative dispersion is reported. Our experimental observations are qualitatively similar to the well-known proof-of-principle demonstration of light storage (D F Phillips et al 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 783), but obtained under conditions where electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) does not exist and the slow-light dark-state polariton model does not apply. Under the present experimental conditions the retrieved pulses obtained in atomic media with dark or bright Zeeman coherences have very similar exponentially decaying slopes which are independent of the shape of the incoming signal pulse. Numerical modelling based on the optical Bloch equations reproduces the essential features of the experimental observations.