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Journal of the Optical Society of America A

Electrodynamics analysis on coherent perfect absorber and phase-controlled optical switch

Tianjie Chen, Shaoguang Duan, Yen‐Chen Chen

Published Apr 11, 2012• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A coherent perfect absorber is essentially a specially designed Fabry-Perot interferometer, which completely extinguishes the incident coherent light. The one- and two-beam coherent perfect absorbers have been analyzed using classical electrodynamics by considering index matching in layered structures to totally suppress reflections. This approach presents a clear and physically intuitive picture for the principle of operation of a perfect absorber. The results show that the incident beam(s) must have correct phases and amplitudes, and the real and imaginary parts of the refractive indices of the media in the interferometer must satisfy a well-defined relation. Our results are in agreement with those obtained using the S-matrix analysis. However, the results were obtained solely based on the superposition of waves from multiple reflections without invoking the concept of time reversal as does the S-matrix approach. Further analysis shows that the two-beam device can be configured to function as a phase-controlled three-state switch.

DOI
10.1364/josaa.29.000689

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A coherent perfect absorber is essentially a specially designed Fabry-Perot interferometer, which completely extinguishes the incident coherent light. The one- and two-beam coherent perfect absorbers have been analyzed using classical electrodynamics by considering index matching in layered structures to totally suppress reflections. This approach presents a clear and physically intuitive picture for the principle of operation of a perfect absorber. The results show that the incident beam(s) must have correct phases and amplitudes, and the real and imaginary parts of the refractive indices of the media in the interferometer must satisfy a well-defined relation. Our results are in agreement with those obtained using the S-matrix analysis. However, the results were obtained solely based on the superposition of waves from multiple reflections without invoking the concept of time reversal as does the S-matrix approach. Further analysis shows that the two-beam device can be configured to function as a phase-controlled three-state switch.
We propose a scheme in which an arbitrary incidence can be made perfectly reflected/transmitted with a phase modulator. We analyze the variation of intracavity field as well as output field with closed-loop phase ϕ 1 of the control fields and relative phase ϕ 2 of the probe beams. With two phases, medium absorption and light interference can be controlled so that photon escape from the cavity can be manipulated, thus an intensity switching based on phase modulation can be realized. And the condition for perfect transmitter or reflector is obtained. Then based on the transmission/reflection analysis, the total absorption of this system can be investigated. Therefore our scheme can be used as an absorption interferometer to explore the optical absorption in some complicated system. The state delay of the output light intensity, which is dependent on ϕ 1 or ϕ 2, can be applied in the realization of quantum phase gate and subtle wave filter. And based on this scheme, we implement the state transfer between perfect transmitter/reflector and non-perfect coherent photon absorber via relative-phase modulation.
We propose a scheme in which an arbitrary incidence can be made perfectly reflected/transmitted if a phase setup is adjusted under a specific condition. We analyze the intracavity field variation as well as the output field with changing closed-loop phase of atomic system and relative phase of input probe beams. And we obtain the condition for perfect transmitter or reflector. By adjusting two phase setups, the medium absorption and light interference can be controlled so that photon escape from cavity can be modulated, thus the intensity switching based on phase control can be realized. Then based on the transmission/reflection analysis, total absorption of this system can be investigated. Therefore our scheme can be used as an absorption interferometer to explore the optical absorption in some complicated system. The phase delay dependent on phi_1 or phi_2 in output light intensity can be applied in the realization of quantum phase gate and subtle wave filter. And based on this scheme, we implement the state transfer between perfect transmitter/reflector and non-perfect coherent photon absorber via relative-phase modulation.
-type atomic system driven resonantly by three coherent fields in a closed-loop coupling configuration. Owing to phase-controlled quantum interference, the real part of the induced complex permittivity becomes negative with vanishing imaginary part over a finite range of probe detuning. As a consequence, the complex refractive index exhibits a vanishing real part at a specific spectral detuning. Under this condition, the reflectance of the probe beam entering the medium reaches unity with ultimate suppression of transmittance. This leads to the phenomenon of perfect optically induced reflection (OIR). The tunable nature of OIR provides a new route for manipulating light propagation. The present study holds promise for its applications in the field of photonics. To this aim, we have demonstrated a two-port all-optical switching application at low light levels.
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.
In the time-reversed counterpart to laser emission, incident coherent optical fields are perfectly absorbed within a resonator that contains a loss medium instead of a gain medium. The incident fields and frequency must coincide with those of the corresponding laser with gain. We demonstrated this effect for two counterpropagating incident fields in a silicon cavity, showing that scattering [corrected] can be modulated [corrected] by two orders of magnitude, the maximum predicted by theory for our experimental setup. In addition, we showed that absorption can be reduced substantially by varying the relative phase of the incident fields. The device, termed a "coherent perfect absorber," functions as an absorptive interferometer, with potential practical applications in integrated optics.
Recently, coherent perfect absorbers have received much attention from researchers in the field of classical optics. Such absorbers, known as a time-reversal of lasers, provide perfect absorption of the incident light. Considering the very attractive features of these materials, in this paper, we investigate the quantum optics of these materials. To do this, we consider two coherent perfect absorber structures and assume two identical two-level atoms; one of which is prepared in its ground state and the other in the excited state, are placed on both sides of the coherent perfect absorber slabs. We compute the spontaneous emission rate, Lamb shift, and collective decay of atoms near two slabs, and then investigate the entanglement dynamics of the atomic system using the concurrence. We find that these parameters exhibit a damped oscillatory behavior with increasing the distance between the atoms and the slabs. In contrast to the classical regime, we also observe that these structures are not the perfect absorbers in the quantum regime.