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Optics Letters

Effect of saturation on the spectrum of degenerate four-wave mixing in atomic sodium vapor

J. P. Woerdman, Martin F. H. Schuurmans

Published May 1, 1981• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The spectrum of degenerate four-wave mixing in Na vapor is shown to be purely dispersive for Rabi frequencies between the natural linewidth and the Doppler width. This result is qualitatively explained by the fact that absorption saturates much faster than dispersion.
DOI
10.1364/ol.6.000239

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The observation of a new type of saturation effects in degenerate four-wave mixing in Na vapor is reported. The experimental configuration is neither counterpropagating nor velocity selective, and yet sub-Doppler high-resolution lines are observed at the atomic-transition frequencies, and at the weighted center of a Doppler-broadened distribution. These new features are the result of an interplay between absorption and saturation, and the inhomogeneous broadening is essential for their existence.
Degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) line shapes are investigated in sodium vapor near the D(2) resonance line using nearly Fourier-transform-limited pulses. At low pump intensities sub-Doppler resolution is obtained. When the Rabi frequency associated with the pump intensity becomes comparable with the ground-state hyperfine frequency separation of sodium, each component of the double-peaked DFWM spectrum splits further into two components. An adiabatic-following model explains the near-resonant intensity dependence of the DFWM signal. A qualitative explanation of the observed splitting is also given.
We present in this paper a theory of the saturation effects in degenerate four-wave mixing which makes use of the dressed-atom method. We mainly study the case of a Doppler-broadened line, but several results can be applied to the case of nearly degenerate four-wave mixing for a Doppler-free medium. We show that a close relationship does exist between the two problems : the generated beam is mainly created when the detuning between two incident beams is equal to the Rabi frequency. In the degenerate case, this condition is fulfilled by two velocity groups because of the Doppler shift. We analytically calculate the lineshapes for two-level atoms in the case of forward saturation (the intense pump beam propagates in the same direction than the probe beam) and in the case of backward saturation (the intense pump beam and the probe beam propagate in opposite directions). We also study collisional effects and the influence of the intensity of the weak pump beam when perturbation theory can no longer be applied.
Degenerate four-wave mixing in sodium vapor is investigated using a flashlamp-pumped dye laser synchronized on a cw dye laser. At low atomic density, the reflectivity versus the pump intensity and the line shapes are in good agreement with theoretical predictions in the case of both plane waves and Gaussian beams. At high atomic density, reflectivities much higher than unity have been observed. The influence of the pump imbalance has been studied as well as the deformation of the wave front of the conjugated beam introduced by the pump beams. In the high-atomic-density case, the theoretical problem is more complex, and our experimental results exhibit only qualitative agreement with theory.
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Results of experiments investigating the effects of optical pumping and atomic motion on cw degenerate four-wave mixing in atomic sodium vapor are presented. The signal strength is found to decrease as (sin θ)−2, where θ is the angle between the object and pump waves; however, the linewidth for generation is Doppler free and is independent of θ. Agreement is found with a simple model of the mixing process. Distortions of the atomic velocity distribution (produced in our experiments by optical pumping) are found to be essential for efficient cw generation. A new modulation scheme for the discrimination against background is used.