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Physical Review A

Area evolution of a few-cycle pulse laser in a two-level-atom medium

Jian Xiao, Zhongyang Wang, Zhizhan Xu

Published Feb 5, 2002• 62 citations
Publisher

Abstract

By solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations, we study the area evolution of a few-cycle pulse laser propagating in a resonant two-level-atom medium. We find that in short propagation distance, the pulse envelope, obtained within the slowly varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation, agrees nicely with the carrier field. In this case, the area theorem can still predict the profile of the area evolution of a few-cycle optical pulse. However, contrary to the long-pulse case, the variation of the few-cycle pulse area is caused by the pulse splitting but not by the pulse broadening or the pulse compression. Furthermore, the negative area occurs when the pulse area decreases. As a result, a pulse with area less than $\ensuremath{\pi}$ is not absorbed rapidly according to the usual Beer's law of absorption but evolves to nonvanishing zero $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.65.031402

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Optics Express•Jan 1, 2005•29 citations
By solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations, we study the area evolution of a few-cycle pulse laser propagating in a resonant two-level-atom medium. We find that in short propagation distance, the pulse envelope, obtained within the slowly varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation, agrees nicely with the carrier field. In this case, the area theorem can still predict the profile of the area evolution of a few-cycle optical pulse. However, contrary to the long-pulse case, the variation of the few-cycle pulse area is caused by the pulse splitting but not by the pulse broadening or the pulse compression. Furthermore, the negative area occurs when the pulse area decreases. As a result, a pulse with area less than \ensuremathπ\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremathπ is not absorbed rapidly according to the usual Beer's law of absorption but evolves to nonvanishing zero \ensuremathπ\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremathπ pulse.
By comparing the numerical solutions of Maxwell-Bloch equations beyond and within the slowly-varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation for the propagation of a few-cycle pulse laser in a resonant two-level atom medium, we found that both the Rabi flopping and the refractive index, and subsequently the carrier and the propagation velocity of the few-cycle pulse, are closely connected with the time-derivative behaviour of the electric field. This is because the Rabi flopping is such that the soliton pulse splits during propagation and that a shorter pulse propagates faster than a broader one.
We solve the problem of ultrashort pulse propagation in a two-level medium beyond the rotating-wave (RWA) and slowly varying-envelope approximations. The method of solution is based on the Maxwell-Bloch equations represented in the form that allows one to switch between RWA and general (non-RWA) cases in the framework of a single numerical algorithm. Using this method, the effect of a subcycle pulse (containing less than a single period of field oscillations) on the two-level medium was analyzed. It is shown that for such short pulses, the clear breakdown of the area theorem occurs for the pulses of large enough area. Moreover, deviations from the area theorem appear to be strongly dependent on the pulse shape that cannot be observed for longer few-cycle pulses.
Propagation of a few-cycle laser pulse in a dense V-type three-level atomic medium is investigated by the numerical solution of the full Maxwell–Bloch equations without the rotating wave and slowly varying envelope approximations, and the numerical solution is obtained by using the predictor–corrector method and the finite-difference time-domain method. It is shown that, due to the strength of the electric field induced by the macroscopic polarization in a dense medium being stronger than that in a dilute medium and the influence of the near dipole–dipole (NDD) interaction, the time evolution of a few-cycle pulse in the dense medium is remarkably different from that in the corresponding dilute medium. In the dilute medium, oscillation arises at the trailing edge of the pulse; while in the dense medium, it appears at both the leading and trailing edges of the pulse; moreover, the oscillation at the leading edge is more obvious with the pulse area decreasing. The carrier-envelope phase has an obvious difference in the two cases with and without NDD interaction. The ratio, γ, of the transition dipole moments has strong influence on the time evolution and split of the pulse. In the dense medium, when γ = 1, NDD interaction delays propagation and split of the pulse; while when γ > 1, NDD interaction accelerates propagation and split of the pulse, moreover, the phenomenon is more obvious with the input pulse area decreasing. In the dilute medium, the larger area pulse doesn't split when γ = 1 while it splits when γ > 1.
Using the numerical solution of the full Maxwell-Bloch equations without the slowly varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation, propagation behavior of few-cycle laser pulse in a dense ladder-type three-level atomic medium is investigated and it is compared with the case in the corresponding dilute medium. It is found that, in the propagation process, time evolution of the pulse in the dense medium is obviously different from that in the dilute medium, and the difference will become more evident with increasing of the initial pulse area. When the initial pulse area is smaller, in the propagating process, the pulse shape in the dilute medium just have a small change; the pulse shape in the dense medium has considerable variation but the pulse splitting doesn't occur. When the initial pulse area is larger enough, for the dense medium case, the pulse splits into sub-pulses with different numbers and shapes at different propagation distances; while for the dilute medium case, variation of the pulse shape is still smaller in propagation process. The cause producing above difference is from two effects in the dense medium: the effect of the local-field correction (LFC) from the near dipole-dipole interaction and effect of stronger polarization field than that in the dilute medium. In which the effect of stronger polarization field plays a main role, but the role of LFC also cannot be neglected,and the stronger polarization field is due to the atomic density increasing .
The phase-dependent feature of few-cycle pulsed laser propagation in a resonant two-level atom medium is demonstrated by solving the full Maxwell-Bloch equations. Even in the perturbative region, the propagating carrier field and the corresponding spectra of the few-cycle pulsed laser are sensitive to the initial phase due to self-phase modulation. For the larger pulse area, the fact that the carrier-wave reshaping comes from the carrier-wave Rabi flopping is also responsible for this sensitivity, and the phase-dependent feature is more evident.
The propagation behaviors, which include the carrier-envelope phase, the area evolution and the solitary pulse number of few-cycle pulses in a dense two-level medium, are investigated based on full-wave Maxwell-Bloch equations by taking Lorentz local field correction (LFC) into account. Several novel features are found: the difference of the carrier-envelope phase between the cases with and without LFC can go up to pi at some location; although the area of ultrashort solitary pulses is lager than 2pi, the area of the effective Rabi frequency, which equals to that the Rabi frequency pluses the product of the strength of the near dipole-dipole (NDD) interaction and the polarization, is consistent with the standard area theorem and keeps 2pi; the large area pulse penetrating into the medium produces several solitary pulses as usual, but the number of solitary pulses changes at certain condition.