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Physical Review Letters

Observation of Nonlinear Optical Interactions of Ultralow Levels of Light in a Tapered Optical Nanofiber Embedded in a Hot Rubidium Vapor

S. M. Spillane, G. S. Pati, K. Salit, Matthew Hall, Prem Kumar, Raymond G. Beausoleil, M. S. Shahriar

Published Jun 11, 2008• 147 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the observation of low-light level optical interactions in a tapered optical nanofiber (TNF) embedded in a hot rubidium vapor. The small optical mode area plays a significant role in the optical properties of the hot vapor Rb-TNF system, allowing nonlinear optical interactions with nW level powers even in the presence of transit-time dephasing rates much larger than the intrinsic linewidth. We demonstrate nonlinear absorption and V-type electromagnetically induced transparency with cw powers below 10 nW, comparable to the best results in any Rb-optical waveguide system. The good performance and flexibility of the Rb-TNF system makes it a very promising candidate for ultralow power resonant nonlinear optical applications.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.100.233602

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We report the observation of low-light level optical interactions in a tapered optical nanofiber (TNF) embedded in a hot rubidium vapor. The small optical mode area plays a significant role in the optical properties of the hot vapor Rb-TNF system, allowing nonlinear optical interactions with nW level powers even in the presence of transit-time dephasing rates much larger than the intrinsic linewidth. We demonstrate nonlinear absorption and V-type electromagnetically induced transparency with cw powers below 10 nW, comparable to the best results in any Rb-optical waveguide system. The good performance and flexibility of the Rb-TNF system makes it a very promising candidate for ultralow power resonant nonlinear optical applications.
We report the observation of ultralow-power absorption saturation in a tapered optical fiber (TOF) mounted in a hot cesium (Cs) vapor in a vacuum chamber. The small optical mode area of TOF produces a great influence on optical properties, allowing optical interactions with nanowatt-level power. The comparison of transmission characteristics for the TOF system and free-space vapor is investigated at different input power and atomic density. The unique performance of the Cs-TOF system makes it a promising candidate in resonant nonlinear optical applications with ultralow power.
In this work, we describe experimental research on a relatively new nonlinear optics system comprised of a sub-wavelength diameter Tapered Optical Fiber (TOF) suspended in atomic Rubidium (Rb) vapor. The compression of the evanescent optical mode propagating along the TOF enables a dramatic increase in the nonlinear interactions between the fields and the surrounding Rb atoms, thereby allowing the observation of a variety of nonlinear optical effects with very low-power fields. Specifically, we report on the observation of saturated absorption with nW power levels and, more significantly, the observation of two-photon absorption using power-levels corresponding to only 10's to 100's of photons interacting with the Rb atoms at a given time. One significant drawback to this TOF in Rb system is that at the relatively high atomic densities needed for many of these experiments, Rb atoms accumulating on the TOF surface can cause a significant loss of overall transmission through the fiber. Here we report direct measurements of the time-scale associated with this transmission degradation for various Rb density conditions. We find that transmission is affected almost immediately after the introduction of Rb vapor into the system, and declines rapidly as the density is increased. More significantly, we show how a heating element designed to raise the TOF temperature can be used to reduce this transmission loss and dramatically extend the effective TOF transmission lifetime. Our results indicate that it is possible to achieve relatively high TOF transmission, even in the presence of the relatively high Rb vapor densities that would be needed for many low-power nonlinear optics applications. This study represents a significant step in moving the basic TOF in Rb system from a laboratory setting towards a practical ultra-low-power nonlinear optics device.
Systems allowing controllable photon-atom interactions are becoming increasingly important for quantum communication applications. One promising platform involves the interaction of the tightly-confined evanescent mode of an optical nanofiber with surrounding atoms. This dissertation will overview our work on the interaction of nanofiber-guided light with a warm rubidium vapor. In comparison to related work with cold atom clouds or trapped atoms, the "warm atom-nanofiber" system is fairly robust but operates in a regime where motional effects of the atoms are significant. We will first discuss a detailed study of saturated absorption in this system, with an emphasis on the role of motional effects in hyperfine pumping rates and various line broadening mechanisms. The power needed to saturate the system is essentially a measure of the system?s capability to enable nonlinear optical interactions of the kind that are needed for quantum communication applications, and we observe remarkably ultralow saturation powers of 10?s of nW (corresponding to only ?10 photons passing through the nanofiber at a given time). We then utilize this strong nonlinearity to demonstrate 3-level ladder-type electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and all-optical modulation with ultralow control-field powers on the order of only a few ?W. Finally, we discuss a novel nanofiber-segment nonlinear ring resonator comprised of a large loop of conventional single-mode fiber with a short nanofiber segment surrounded by a warm rubidium vapor. In this device, the cavity enhanced evanescent field of the nanofiber enables even stronger photon-atom interactions.
We present an experimental approach to study low light level absorption in a tapered optical fiber embedded in a rubidium atomic vapor medium. Our initial measurements demonstrates the potential of the system to realize extremely low light level quantum interference effects in the ultra small mode volume of the thin fiber, which is promising for many practical integrated device applications. The measurement shows saturated probe absorption using a low optical power of only ten nanowatt. Efforts are underway to use the fiber in a cloud of trapped rubidium atoms, which will circumvent the transit time limit for demonstrating a low photon optical switch via quantum interference.
We demonstrate ladder-type electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using an optical nanofiber suspended in a warm rubidium vapor. The signal and control fields are both guided along the nanofiber, which enables strong nonlinear interactions with the surrounding atoms at relatively low powers. Transit-time broadening is found to be a significant EIT decoherence mechanism in this tightly confined waveguiding geometry. Nonetheless, we observe significant EIT and controlled polarization rotation using control-field powers of only a few microwatts in this relatively robust warm-atom nanofiber system.