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Physical Review A

Short-pulse population inversion and transmittance

Matjaž Kaluža, James T. Muckerman

Published Feb 1, 1995• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The maximal population transfer in a two-level system induced by an ultrashort, linearly polarized laser pulse and the optimal pulse shape for maximal population transfer depend critically on the pulse duration and phase. In the case of temporally symmetric pulses, half-cycle pulses are optimal and are capable of inverting the population completely. For antisymmetric pulses, bimodal pulses are optimal but cannot invert the population completely. Deviations from the Rabi formula for the pulse parameters do not occur until the pulses become shorter than a few optical cycles.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.51.1694

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The maximal population transfer in a two-level system induced by an ultrashort, linearly polarized laser pulse and the optimal pulse shape for maximal population transfer depend critically on the pulse duration and phase. In the case of temporally symmetric pulses, half-cycle pulses are optimal and are capable of inverting the population completely. For antisymmetric pulses, bimodal pulses are optimal but cannot invert the population completely. Deviations from the Rabi formula for the pulse parameters do not occur until the pulses become shorter than a few optical cycles.
We consider the population inversion in a two-level system generated by a sub-one-cycle pulse excitation. Specifically, we explore the effect that the time derivative of the pulse envelope has on the Rabi dynamics. Our analysis is based on a combination of analytical, perturbative, and nonperturbative treatments and is complemented by numerical simulations. We find a shortening of the Rabi inversion period and show that complete inversion is unobtainable under resonant, ultrashort pulse conditions. The impact of nonresonant and carrier-envelope phase-dependent effects on the dynamics of two-level and multilevel systems is studied numerically, and conditions for complete population inversion are derived.
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Techniques for producing, measuring, and applying ever shorter electromagnetic pulses are being developed for incorporation in a variety of modern high-speed systems. In many cases these pulses are at most a few cycles in length, and so-called half-cycle electromagnetic pulses are also widely employed. The interaction of such pulses with two-level media is considered here in detail, and these media are basic to many of the absorbing and amplifying configurations of optics and laser studies. Significant delays and distortion of the resulting polarization and population pulses can occur, and nonlinear optical effects are also revealed. The limitations of the parity, rate-equation, and rotating-wave approximations for the characterization of such few-cycle interactions are also explored.
: We study the creation of high-efficiency controlled population transfer in intersubband transitions of semiconductor quantum wells. We give emphasis to the case of interaction of the semiconductor quantum well with electromagnetic pulses with a duration of few cycles and even a single cycle. We numerically solve the effective nonlinear Bloch equations for a specific double GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structure, taking into account the ultrashort nature of the applied field, and show that high-efficiency population inversion is possible for specific pulse areas. The dependence of the efficiency of population transfer on the electron sheet density and the carrier envelope phase of the pulse is also explored. For electromagnetic pulses with a duration of several cycles, we find that the change in the electron sheet density leads to a very different response of the population in the two subbands to pulse area. However, for pulses with a duration equal to or shorter than 3 cycles, we show that efficient population transfer between the two subbands is possible, independent of the value of electron sheet density, if the pulse area is Π.