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AIP conference proceedings

Experimental studies of quantum control in atoms

Dimitrios Charalambidis, Natalia E. Karapanagioti, D. Xenakis, Costas Fotakis, O. Faucher, E. Hertz, Stefano Cavalieri, R. Eramo, Lorenzo Fini, Marzia Materazzi

Published Jan 1, 1998• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present selected examples of recent experimental results in coherent quantum control of processes and products of laser atom interactions. These include control of ionization and autoionization rates, of light induced atomic structure, ionization branching ratios and frequency up-conversion. Quantum interference of atomic transitions, induced by a bichromatic electromagnetic field, is underlying all the results of this work. Since the quantum interference is induced by the field, its parameters govern control of products and processes. Thus control is demonstrated through the wavelength, intensity and phase of the field.

DOI
10.1063/1.57179

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We report evidence of an interference process between two bound-free atomic transitions induced by laser fields. Sodium atoms, initially prepared in the 3P1/2{3\mathrm{P}}_{1\mathrm{/}2}3P1/2​ excited state, are ionized by a nonresonant three-photon interaction with 1064-nm laser light and by a one-photon interaction with the third-harmonic field, at 355 nm. Interference between the two transition paths allows the control of the total ionization rate by varying the relative phase of the laser fields. The experiment has provided a fringe visibility as high as 42%.
Coherent interactions of laser fields with resonant atomic and molecular transitions significantly modify optical characteristics of the medium via quantum interference between transition amplitudes. This interference can result in reduction or enhancement of the laser absorption, decrease of the group velocity of the laser pulse etc. The origin of all these processes is electromagnetically induced transparency. This effect is intensively investigated in the connection with its multiple applications: lasing without inversion, group velocity control, quantum optical storage and quantum computing, effective nonlinear interactions of low field intensities, high-precision measurements, spectroscopy and metrology, plasma diagnostics, atomic clock etc.
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Atomic coherence and interference manifested by electromagentically induced transparency (EIT) and coherent population trapping (CPT) plays an important role in the current studies of atom-photon interactions and has found numerous applications in optical physics. EIT is created in a three-level atomic system by a coupling field and results in destructive interference between two excitation paths of a weak probe laser interacting with the atomic medium. This leads to suppressed linear absorption and rapidly varying atomic dispersion for the probe laser near the atomic resonance, which provides the platform for a variety of applications such as nonlinear optics at low light levels, slow light manipulation, and quantum state engineering for photons and atoms. Here we extend the simple three-level EIT system to more complicated and versatile configurations in a multi-level atomic system coupled by multiple laser fields. We show that with multiple excitation paths provided by different laser fields, phase-dependent quantum interference is induced: either constructive or destructive interference can be realized by varying the relative phases among the laser fields. Two specific examples are discussed. One is a three-level system coupled by bichromatic coupling and probe fields, in which the phase dependent interference between the resonant two-photon Raman transitions can be initiated and controlled. Another is a four-level system coupled by two coupling fields and two probe fields, in which a double-EIT configuration is created by the phase-dependent interference between three-photon and one-photon excitation processes. We analyze the coherently coupled multi-level atomic system and discuss the control parameters for the onset of constructive or destructive quantum interference. We describe two experiments performed with cold Rb atoms that can be approximately treated as the coherently coupled three-level and four-level atomic systems respectively. The experimental results show the phase-dependent quantum coherence and interference in the multi-level Rb atomic system, and agree with the theoretical calculations based on the coherently coupled three-level or four-level model system.