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AIP conference proceedings

The effects of local fields on laser gain of composite optical materials

Ksenia Dolgaleva, Robert W. Boyd, Peter W. Milonni, Dmitry N. Chigrin

Published Jan 1, 2011• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We develop a simple theoretical model for calculating the effective linear susceptibility of composite optical materials with a gain resonance in one of their components. We distinguish two cases of resonant components: the case of “pure resonant emitters,” in which all the atoms or molecules of the resonant medium are of the same sort, and the case of “resonant emitters in a background,” in which only a fraction of the molecules or atoms comprising the resonant component of a composite material are in resonance with the optical field. Analysis of the model suggests that local‐field effects in composite materials can provide a useful means for controlling the optical properties of laser gain media.

DOI
10.1063/1.3644233

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We develop a simple theoretical model for calculating the effective linear susceptibility of composite optical materials with a gain resonance in one of their components. We distinguish two cases of resonant components: the case of “pure resonant emitters,” in which all the atoms or molecules of the resonant medium are of the same sort, and the case of “resonant emitters in a background,” in which only a fraction of the molecules or atoms comprising the resonant component of a composite material are in resonance with the optical field. Analysis of the model suggests that local‐field effects in composite materials can provide a useful means for controlling the optical properties of laser gain media.
We investigate local-field effects in nonlinear optical materials composed of two species of atoms. One species of atom is assumed to be near resonance with an applied field and is modeled as a two-level system while the other species of atom is assumed to be in the linear regime. If the near dipole-dipole interaction between two-level atoms is negligible, the usual local-field enhancement of the field is obtained. For the case in which near-dipole-dipole interactions are significant due to a high density of two-level atoms, local-field effects associated with the presence of a optically linear material component lead to local-field enhancement of the near dipole-dipole interaction, intrinsic cooperative decays, and coherence exchange processes.
The study of optical effects in active media is rich with unexpected consequences. For instance, one may imagine that absorption and amplification in a dielectric medium will exhibit some sort of symmetry because both are related to the same imaginary part of the dielectric constant, except for a sign change. It turns out that such a symmetry does not exist [1]. This issue has also been investigated in detail for random or disordered gain media, with varying viewpoints [2]. Traditionally, much of the research on amplifying media has considered the interaction of light within the entire volume of such a medium. Recent interest in metamaterials and other esoteric structures in which plasmons are used to manipulate optical signals has brought attention to the role of surface waves in active dielectrics [3, 4]. From a fundamental perspective, the main difference between active and passive media is that spontaneous emission cannot be avoided in gain media. As a result, a rigorous analysis of gain media demands a quantum-mechanical treatment. Spontaneous emission in a gain medium depends not only on the material properties of that medium but also on the optical modes supported by the structure containing that material [5]. By a clever design of this structure (e.g., photonic crystals or microdisk resonators with a metallic cladding), it is possible to control the local density of optical modes and the spontaneous emission process itself. In Chapter 4, we discuss how to model a gain medium under such conditions by deploying optical Bloch equations.
Abstract The current paper demonstrates theoretical analysis of two types of spectral curves for several configurations of system of two-level light emitters, considering the influence of local field and close environment inside a transparent medium. Probe field absorption spectra and resonant fluorescence spectra are calculated under excitation of a strong monochromatic cw laser. The sensitivity of absorption and emission optical spectroscopy method is compared for revealing the effects of the medium on individual emitters and their ensembles. Spectral curves were calculated for model emitters considering local field influence of a transparent dielectric medium and local electron-phonon interactions, which determined the response of the emitters to an external laser field and effective relaxation mechanisms. The calculation formalism is based on a semiclassical approach, while the relaxation processes associated with the phonon contribution are introduced phenomenologically with references to other studies.
We present a detailed theory of dressed-state lasers, i.e., the lasers that operate due to the gain on an inverted transition between dressed states of a coupled atom-field system. We derive effective Hamiltonians that describe such lasers for the case of one- and two-photon resonances. We argue that, due to the presence of nearly resonant intermediate states, the use of gain media consisting of strongly driven two-level atoms provides an unorthodox yet promising means for achieving cw optical two-photon laser oscillation. We disscuss the stability properties of radiation generated by such media.
It is well known that, for static fields, the local microscopic electric field EL, that couples to the atomic dipole moment p, is related to the macroscopic field E and volume polarization P, in a dense dielectric medium, by the Lorentz-Lorenz (LL) relation.1 For dense media, this relation implies a nonlinear relationship between the microscopic molecular polarizability α and the macroscopic susceptibility χ, for a material volume density N. The LL relation also holds for arbitrary time-dependent fields in a nonlinear medium.2 What this implies is that all of quantum optics that uses an external electric field rather than the local field is internally inconsistent and will yield only approximate results for an optically dense medium. We consider the effect of the local field interaction on a simple three-level A system predicted to exhibit lasing without inversion and a high index of refraction at zero absorption.3 A threshold transition allows us to choose a value of this parameter that enhances inversionless gain and absorptionless dispersion by at least two orders of magnitude over that foundin usual lasing without inversion.4
Abstract The local field contribution to some three‐ and four‐level coherent atomic vapors is considered, and a significant modification to optical properties due to dipole‐dipole interaction between neighboring atoms is discussed. It is found that the local field effect can reduce loss of a four‐level N‐type vapor medium at the resonant frequency in both the steady and transient cases. In order to achieve a left‐handed medium with a negative refractive index, a scenario to realize simultaneously negative permittivity and permeability inside a mixed coherent atomic vapor by using quantum coherence effect is suggested. One of the remarkable features of the present scheme is such that it can lead to a controllable manipulation of negative refractive index of an atomic vapor by using external coupling and signal fields. This may be a new scheme to fabricate the negatively refracting materials based on quantum optical approach.