Optical amplification and interference

David A. Cardimona, Paul M. Alsing

In space situational awareness scenarios, the objects needed to be characterized and identified are usually quite far away and quite dim. Thus, optical detectors need to be able to sense these very dim optical signals. Quantum interference in a three-level system can lead to amplification of optical signals. If we put a three-level system into a cavity tuned to the frequency of an incoming optical signal, we anticipate the amplification possibilities should be increased proportional to the quality factor of the cavity. Our vision is to utilize quantum dots in photonic crystal cavities, but as a stepping stone we first investigate a simple three-level system in a free-space optical cavity. We investigate quantum interference and classical interference effects when a three-level system interacts with both a cavity field mode and an external driving field mode. We find that under certain circumstances the cavity field evolves to be equal in magnitude to, but 180° out-of-phase with the external pump field when the pump field frequency equals the cavity frequency. At this point the resonance fluorescence from the atom in the cavity goes to zero due to a purely classical interference effect between the two out-of-phase fields. This is quite different from the quantum interference that occurs under the right circumstances, when the state populations are coherently driven into a linear combination that is decoupled from any applied field - and population is trapped in the excited states, thus allowing for a population inversion and an amplification of incoming optical signals.

E. Desurvire

Radim Filip, Jan Peřina

Amplification and cloning of the Schrödinger-cat state (even coherent-state superposition) in the optical nondegenerate parametric amplifier are analysed. In the long-time limit, distinguishability and interference in the marginal probability distributions of the Schrödinger-cat state cannot be preserved simultaneously during amplification. The mutual ratio between distinguishability and interference can be controlled by the squeezed vacuum state injected in the idler mode. Thus only one of either quantum interference of indistinguishable states or distinguished states without interference can be obtained on the output of the amplifier. The purity of the initial state in the signal mode disappears during the amplification for both cases, even if the interference is preserved. Thus the interference in the marginal probability distribution is connected with indistinguishability in the phase space rather than with purity of the state. On the other hand, the nonclassical oscillations in the photon-number distribution vanish simultaneously, as the state is more mixed, irrespective of the existence of the interference.

Walter Koechner

Georg A. Reider

A. K. Popov

The effects of coherence of quantum transitions and the interference of resonant nonlinear optical processes on the spectra of absorption, amplification, and nonlinear-optical generation are considered. The most favorable conditions are discussed for the inversionless amplification, resonant refraction in the absence of absorption and for resonant enhancement of nonlinear-optical generation at the discrete transitions and the transitions to continuum.