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Physical Review A

Optical free-induction decay of laser-cooled 85 Rb

K. Toyoda, Yoshiro Takahashi, Kiyoshi Ishikawa, T. Yabuzaki

Published Aug 1, 1997• 26 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical free-induction decay (FID) of laser-cooled ${}^{85}$Rb has been observed. Considerably good agreements are obtained between experiments and theoretical calculations in the condition of no inhomogeneous broadening. The possibility to apply optical FID measurements to the studies of phase relaxation in a dense atom trap is discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.56.1564

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Physical Review A•Dec 1, 1974•44 citations
Optical free-induction decay (FID) of laser-cooled 85{}^{85}85Rb has been observed. Considerably good agreements are obtained between experiments and theoretical calculations in the condition of no inhomogeneous broadening. The possibility to apply optical FID measurements to the studies of phase relaxation in a dense atom trap is discussed.
A novel form of laser frequency switching is devised that extends coherent optical transient studies to a 100-picosecond time scale, the measurements being performed in real time. Free-induction decay (FID) on a subnanosecond time scale reveals new features, such as a first-order FID that dephases with the inhomogeneous dephasing time T2* and interferes with the well-known nonlinear FID. A complete analytical expression for optical FID is derived and supports our FID observations for the sodium D1transition.
The after-saturation free-induction-decay (FID) rate of an electron spin transition has been measured in a dilute ruby sample, and a marked departure from the Bloch-like behavior has been found. The similarity with the results obtained recently by Szabo and Muramoto [Phys. Rev. A 39, 3992 (1989)] in the same system but for optical FID points out the close link between the non-Bloch behavior of the FID emission observed in optics and in magnetic-resonance systems. Our results are compared with the theoretical predictions of a statistical theory of the FID emission, but poor agreement is found.
Recent studies of the failure of the optical Bloch equations (OBE) in describing optical saturation in a solid are extended to test another aspect of the OBE, namely the time dependence of free-induction decay (FID) predicted by the SWB theorem on optical transients [Schenzle, Wong, and Brewer, Phys. Rev. A 22, 635 (1980)]. This theorem states that, following an arbitrarily shaped excitation pulse of length T, the FID will vanish at time T following the end of the excitation pulse. Experiments with ruby violate SWB in that FID decay at least twice as long as the excitation pulse is observed. Numerical and analytical calculations using a Gauss-Markov model for the modified OBE show an extended FID decay, however, the theoretical decay shape does not agree with experiment. Thus as with earlier studies on saturation broadening, we find that the modified OBE provides only a qualitative description of radiation-atom interaction in a solid.
We report theoretical and experimental studies of the propagation of a square-modulated laser pulse through a laser-cooled atomic ensemble of two-level absorbers, as well as through a three-level system with electromagnetically induced transparency. We find that the transmission characteristics over a wide range of optical depth can be fully accounted for as optical coherent transients excited by the wide spectral content of the square-modulated optical pulse. We show that both time-domain atom-field coupled equations and frequency-domain linear dispersion theory give precisely the same description of the optical transients at a weak power limit. At low optical depth with moderate absorption, resonant excitation dominates and free-induction decay (FID) contributes mostly to the transient field. At high optical depth when absorption and propagation effects become significant, lossless optical precursors start to dominate the transient response. By varying the optical depth from 0 to 45, we observe that optical transients evolve gradually from FID to optical precursors. We thus show that FID and optical precursors, which have been considered as two different optical transients for many decades, can be unified within a single theoretical frame and they are the manifestations of the same physical process in two different regimes.
A new feature of optical free induction decay (FID) is observed in a coherently prepared sample of 13CH^{13}\mathrm{CH}13CH3F_{3}\mathrm{F}3​F by the method of Stark switching. The preparative phase is due to the resonant steady-state excitation by a cw laser beam, and is followed by FID upon sudden application of a dc Stark field that switches the molecular sample out of resonance. The emission is not observed as a simple decay but instead appears as a train of sharp pulses regularly spaced in time as a result of a repetitive interference. This situation arises because an entire set of infrared transitions within the Stark split manifold are initially prepared, in contrast to our previous study of a nondegenerate transition. The emission, which beats with the laser, produces a heterodyne beat spectrum, consisting of a set of regularly spaced frequencies, that is the Fourier transform of the slowly decaying pulse progression observed. We thus demonstrate what is the optical analog of the well-known NMR method of high-resolution pulse Fourier spectroscopy. The detailed behavior of the pulse train agrees well with an FID theory that assumes the transitions to be uncoupled. The subtle behavior of FID near the time origin is explored also by approximate analytic expressions that reveal either a near zero amplitude or sizable amplitude depending on the degree of saturation in the preparative stage. The experimental technique discussed offers an attractive way for obtaining high-resolution optical spectra without Doppler broadening, and for generating an optical pulse train whose time scale can be compressed by simply increasing the Stark field.