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Physical Review Letters

Electromagnetically induced transparency with matched pulses

Stephen E. Harris

Published Feb 1, 1993• 284 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show that electromagnetically induced transparency in a dense media is not a Beer's law superposition of the single atom response. When an arbitrarily shaped pulse is applied to an ensemble of population-trapped atoms, the atoms will generate a matching pulse shape on the complementary transition and, after a characteristic distance, render themselves transparent.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.70.552

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We show that electromagnetically induced transparency in a dense media is not a Beer's law superposition of the single atom response. When an arbitrarily shaped pulse is applied to an ensemble of population-trapped atoms, the atoms will generate a matching pulse shape on the complementary transition and, after a characteristic distance, render themselves transparent.
Quantum coherence and interference in atomic systems can lead to interesting optical phenomena such as nonabsorbing resonances, lasing without inversion, generating an ultrahigh index of refraction without absorption, propagation of light pulses without losses. In the last-named is given the title transparency. Up to now it is known some types of transparency in multi-level resonant media. One of them is electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The phenomenon of EIT in the propagation of laser radiation through an absorbing medium has been recently investigated and explained in terms of quantum coherence and interference for multi-level atomic system. For instance in the (Lambda) -system, if the atomic medium is prepared in a quantum superposition of states, matched pulses, i.e., a pair of optical pulses whose amplitude and phase have a well defined relation, propagate without absorption. The mechanism of coherent population trapping is responsible for EIT in a (Lambda) -system. There is another, well known mechanism for creating transparency in a two-state atom: self-induced transparency, or SIT. Here, a single pulse whose area (the integral of its Rabi frequency over time) is 2(pi) is applied to the medium. Such a pulse causes the atoms to cycle smoothly from the ground to the excited state and then back again. In principle, such a pulse can propagate over long distances. SIT can be generalized to multi-level systems and multiple quasi-monochromatic fields. Generalization of SIT in a (Lambda) -system was obtained in reference 2. In this report we present a new type of transparency (combined transparency). This type describes propagation of laser pulse through a (Lambda) -type medium where the initial atomic state is prepared in the form of spatially varying coherent superposition of low-energetic states (initial coherency gradient). The common envelope behaves as usual 2(pi) hyperbolic secant pulse, but the ratio between the components of frequencies transitions 1> yields 3> and 2> yields 3> changes due to coherent Raman scattering so (phi) equals atan(E1/E2) equals (pi) /2-Gz, where z is the coordinate, G is the constant determined by both the incident pulse parameters and the initial coherence between the atomic states. Our solution demonstrates a direct connection of EIT in adiabatic regime to the SIT effects. This type of a transparency is given the title screw-type transparency, because for the given form of incident pulse (pitch of screw) medium is transparent, if medium's the initial coherence gradient is correspondingly prepared (thread on a engine nut). Besides a transparency, this phenomenon contains a transformation of the incident pulse frequency during the process of the propagation. This property of the phenomena can be result in a complete conversion of the frequency.
We present a detailed theoretical description of the generation of stationary light pulses by standing-wave electromagnetically induced transparency in media comprised of stationary atoms such as ultracold gasses and solids. We show that, contrary to thermal gas media, the achievable storage times are limited only by the ground state dephasing rate of the atoms, making such media ideally suited for nonlinear optical interactions between stored pulses. Furthermore, we find significant quantitative and qualitative differences between the two types of media, which are important for quantum-information processing schemes involving stationary light pulses.
We present a detailed theoretical description of the generation of stationary light pulses by standing wave electromagnetically induced transparency in media comprised of stationary atoms. We show that, contrary to thermal gas media, the achievable storage times are limited only by the ground state dephasing rate of the atoms, making such media ideally suited for nonlinear optical interactions between stored pulses. Furthermore, we find significant quantitative and qualitative differences between the two types of media, which are important for quantum information processing schemes involving stationary light pulses.