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Physical Review A

Two-atom laser

Gordon Yeoman, Georg M. Meyer

Published Sep 1, 1998• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A theoretical model of a microscopic laser system incorporating two identical atoms coupled to a single resonator mode is investigated in detail. It is established that a dramatic improvement in laser quality results from the addition of a second atom into the cavity. The enhanced laser action, arising from a cavity-induced mutual atomic coherence, is inferred from comprehensive studies of the steady-state and dynamical properties of the cavity output field. Evidence of laser action is also found in the fluorescence field where position-dependent spectral profiles occur. Counterintuitively, we establish that antibunching phenomena in the fluorescence can be enhanced by incoherent pumping.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.58.2518

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•Sep 1, 1978•0 citations
A theoretical model of a microscopic laser system incorporating two identical atoms coupled to a single resonator mode is investigated in detail. It is established that a dramatic improvement in laser quality results from the addition of a second atom into the cavity. The enhanced laser action, arising from a cavity-induced mutual atomic coherence, is inferred from comprehensive studies of the steady-state and dynamical properties of the cavity output field. Evidence of laser action is also found in the fluorescence field where position-dependent spectral profiles occur. Counterintuitively, we establish that antibunching phenomena in the fluorescence can be enhanced by incoherent pumping.
We study a single incoherently pumped atom moving within an optical high-QQQ resonator in the strong-coupling regime. Using a semiclassical description for the atom and field dynamics, we derive a closed system of differential equations to describe this coupled atom-field dynamics. For sufficiently strong pumping, the system starts lasing when the atom gets close to a field antinode, and the associated light forces provide for self-trapping of the atom. For a cavity mode blue detuned with respect to the atomic transition frequency, this is combined with cavity-induced motional cooling, allowing for long-term steady-state operation of such a laser. The analytical results for temperature and field statistics agree well with our earlier predictions based on quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We find sub-Doppler temperatures that decrease with gain and coupling strength, and can even go beyond the limit of passive cavity cooling. Besides demonstrating the importance of light forces in single-atom lasers, this result also gives strong evidence to enhance laser cooling through stimulated emission in resonators.
Although conventional lasers operate with a large number of intracavity atoms, the lasing properties of a single atom in a resonant cavity have been theoretically investigated for more than a decade. Here we report the experimental realization of such a one-atom laser operated in a regime of strong coupling. Our experiment exploits recent advances in cavity quantum electrodynamics that allow one atom to be isolated in an optical cavity in a regime for which one photon is sufficient to saturate the atomic transition. In this regime the observed characteristics of the atom-cavity system are qualitatively different from those of the familiar many atom case. Specifically, we present measurements of intracavity photon number versus pump intensity that exhibit "thresholdless" behavior, and infer that the output flux from the cavity mode exceeds that from atomic fluorescence by more than tenfold. Observations of the second-order intensity correlation function demonstrate that our one-atom laser generates manifestly nonclassical light that exhibits both photon antibunching and sub-Poissonian photon statistics.
We present a quantum theory of a coherently pumped two-level atom in a photonic crystal, coupled to both a multi-mode wave-guide channel and a high quality micro-cavity embedded within the photonic crystal. The cavity field characteristics are highly distinct from that of a corresponding high Q cavity in ordinary vacuum. If the cavity field mode is resonant with the central component of the Mollow spectrum of atomic resonance fluorescence, enhanced, inversionless, nearly coherent light generation occurs when the photon density of states jump between the Mollow spectral components is large. The spectrum of the cavity field is also investigated and showed to be narrower than in the case of a conventional cavity. Moreover, enhanced, non-classical light generation is possible, if the cavity field is tuned on resonance with a Mollow sideband.
We investigate the resonant quantum dynamics of a laser-pumped real or artificial two-level single-atom system embedded in a leaking microcavity. We found that for stronger laser-atom-cavity couplings the generated microcavity photons exhibit larger steady-state correlations. In particular, the second- and third-order photon correlation functions are greater than the corresponding ones obtained for an incoherent light source, respectively. Furthermore, the emitted microcavity photon flux is enhanced in comparison to weaker coupling cases.
The behavior of a pumped collection of identical three level atoms in which both the upper pair of levels and the lower pair of levels are coupled to resonant cavity-modes is analyzed. The cases of both incoherent pumping and coherent pumping are considered, and turn out to be qualitatively different. For the case of incoherent pumping, field oscillation can be sustained in only one of the modes, the behavior of the system being that of the familar three-level laser, with oscillation occuring between either the upper pair or lower pair of levels, depending on the relaxation constants. For the case of coherent pumping, however, oscillation can be obtained in both modes. Furthermore, this oscillation is different from that found in a parametric oscillator in the sense that, under certain conditions of operation, the phases of oscillation in the two cavities are independent. The potential application of such behavior is pointed out. (Author)