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Optics Express

Ultra-low power, Zeno effect based optical modulation in a degenerate V-system with a tapered nano fiber in atomic vapor

K. Salit, M. Salit, Subramanian Krishnamurthy, Yu-Hong Wang, Prem Kumar, M. S. Shahriar

Published Oct 27, 2011• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate an ultra-low light level optical modulator using a tapered nano fiber embedded in a hot rubidium vapor. The control and signal beams are co-propagating but orthogonally polarized, leading to a degenerate V-system involving coherent superpositions of Zeeman sublevels. The modulation is due primarily to the quantum Zeno effect for the signal beam induced by the control beam. For a control power of 40 nW and a signal power of 100 pW, we observe near 100% modulation. The ultra-low power level needed for the modulation is due to a combination of the Zeno effect and the extreme field localization in the evanescent field around the taper.

DOI
10.1364/oe.19.022874

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We demonstrate an ultra-low light level optical modulator using a tapered nano fiber embedded in a hot rubidium vapor. The control and signal beams are co-propagating but orthogonally polarized, leading to a degenerate V-system involving coherent superpositions of Zeeman sublevels. The modulation is due primarily to the quantum Zeno effect for the signal beam induced by the control beam. For a control power of 40 nW and a signal power of 100 pW, we observe near 100% modulation. The ultra-low power level needed for the modulation is due to a combination of the Zeno effect and the extreme field localization in the evanescent field around the taper.
We present an experimental approach to study low light level absorption in a tapered optical fiber embedded in a rubidium atomic vapor medium. Our initial measurements demonstrates the potential of the system to realize extremely low light level quantum interference effects in the ultra small mode volume of the thin fiber, which is promising for many practical integrated device applications. The measurement shows saturated probe absorption using a low optical power of only ten nanowatt. Efforts are underway to use the fiber in a cloud of trapped rubidium atoms, which will circumvent the transit time limit for demonstrating a low photon optical switch via quantum interference.
We report the observation of low-light level optical interactions in a tapered optical nanofiber (TNF) embedded in a hot rubidium vapor. The small optical mode area plays a significant role in the optical properties of the hot vapor Rb-TNF system, allowing nonlinear optical interactions with nW level powers even in the presence of transit-time dephasing rates much larger than the intrinsic linewidth. We demonstrate nonlinear absorption and V-type electromagnetically induced transparency with cw powers below 10 nW, comparable to the best results in any Rb-optical waveguide system. The good performance and flexibility of the Rb-TNF system makes it a very promising candidate for ultralow power resonant nonlinear optical applications.
In this work, we describe experimental research on a relatively new nonlinear optics system comprised of a sub-wavelength diameter Tapered Optical Fiber (TOF) suspended in atomic Rubidium (Rb) vapor. The compression of the evanescent optical mode propagating along the TOF enables a dramatic increase in the nonlinear interactions between the fields and the surrounding Rb atoms, thereby allowing the observation of a variety of nonlinear optical effects with very low-power fields. Specifically, we report on the observation of saturated absorption with nW power levels and, more significantly, the observation of two-photon absorption using power-levels corresponding to only 10's to 100's of photons interacting with the Rb atoms at a given time. One significant drawback to this TOF in Rb system is that at the relatively high atomic densities needed for many of these experiments, Rb atoms accumulating on the TOF surface can cause a significant loss of overall transmission through the fiber. Here we report direct measurements of the time-scale associated with this transmission degradation for various Rb density conditions. We find that transmission is affected almost immediately after the introduction of Rb vapor into the system, and declines rapidly as the density is increased. More significantly, we show how a heating element designed to raise the TOF temperature can be used to reduce this transmission loss and dramatically extend the effective TOF transmission lifetime. Our results indicate that it is possible to achieve relatively high TOF transmission, even in the presence of the relatively high Rb vapor densities that would be needed for many low-power nonlinear optics applications. This study represents a significant step in moving the basic TOF in Rb system from a laboratory setting towards a practical ultra-low-power nonlinear optics device.