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Physical Review Letters

Doppler-Free Two-Photon Dispersion and Optical Bistability in Rubidium Vapor

E. Giacobino, Martin Devaud, F. Biraben, G. Grynberg

Published Aug 11, 1980• 74 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Doppler-free two-photon dispersion has been observed in rubidium vapor near the $5{S}_{\frac{1}{2}}\ensuremath{-}5{D}_{\frac{5}{2}}$ two-photon transition. The experiment was performed by looking at the shape of the transmission peaks of a Fabry-Perot cavity filled with rubidium. When the nonlinear susceptibility is large, a bistable behavior occurs. A nonperturbative treatment of the susceptibility is required for the interpretation of these results.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.45.434

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Doppler-free two-photon dispersion has been observed in rubidium vapor near the 5S12\ensuremath−5D525{S}_{\frac{1}{2}}\ensuremath{-}5{D}_{\frac{5}{2}}5S21​​\ensuremath−5D25​​ two-photon transition. The experiment was performed by looking at the shape of the transmission peaks of a Fabry-Perot cavity filled with rubidium. When the nonlinear susceptibility is large, a bistable behavior occurs. A nonperturbative treatment of the susceptibility is required for the interpretation of these results.
We present in this paper a calculation of the non-linear susceptibility near a Doppler-free two-photon transition. In the case of a two-level system, we find a non-perturbative solution. We deduce new effects on the non-linear refractive index which are related to the change of the linear susceptibility because of the transfer of atoms between the ground and excited levels. In the case of a more complex system, we study at the lowest order of perturbation the anisotropy induced by one beam on the other. At last, we show that it is easy to observe a bistable behaviour when atoms, inside a Pérot-Fabry cavity, interact with a beam whose wavelength is close to a two-photon resonance.
Experiments on the steady-state, nonlinear behavior of the 7F1^{7}\mathrm{F}_{1}7F1​${\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}^{7}$F0o{\mathrm{F}}_{0}^{\mathrm{o}}F0o​ 570.68-nm transition of atomic samarium in a laser-driven, near-concentric Fabry-Perot cavity are reported. For zero applied magnetic field, only simple optical bistability, symmetric in both ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{+}$ and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$ transmitted polarizations, is observed for a linearly polarized excitation beam. However, for a magnetic field applied parallel to the propagation direction, polarization-sensitive switching appears, with lowest power threshold near the edge of the Doppler-broadened region. Subsidiary measurements of atomic parameters are also given to enable the transition to be experimentally well characterized.
A novel mechanism is proposed for optical bistability by utilizing the effect of interference which occurs when two levels are coupled by a one-photon resonance and by a two-photon resonance. The resulting bistability does not require atomic saturation, so the bistability can be observed at relatively low incident intensities, and the mechanism is essentially Doppler free, since it occurs by a two-photon process involving absorption of counterpropagating beams of the same frequency. A significant feature is that two-photon bistability can be controlled not only by the magnitude of the field of the one-photon resonance but also by its phase, and an oscillation or amplification of the field of the two-photon resonance can be observed under certain conditions by the mechanism of the parametric interaction of the field of the one-photon resonance and the field of the two-photon resonance through a nonlinear medium.
Heterodyne Doppler-free spectroscopy, previously demonstrated on single-photon resonances (heterodyne saturation spectroscopy), has been extended to two-photon transitions in rubidium (5S-5D and 5S-7S). It provides a simple method of observing the two-photon dispersion lineshape directly. The noticeable sensitivity of this absorption technique, which has been used for an optical measurement of the hyperfine structure of the 5D level, is discussed in comparison with that currently obtained in two-photon-induced fluorescence.