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Physical Review A

Interference-induced transparency and coherent control of quantum systems by frequency-chirped pulses

A. Nazarkin, R. Netz, Roland A. Sauerbrey

Published Apr 22, 2003• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A selective excitation technique based on light interference is proposed to control quantum systems by frequency-chirped laser fields. Interference of two identical, delayed and phase-shifted pulses is used to modulate the laser spectrum and project it onto the time domain. By adjusting the delay and phase shift, selected transitions can be brought into the ``holes'' of the spectrum and thus remain nonexcited. The possibility to selectively manipulate or even ``shut down'' resonant transitions, making the medium transparent to the field, is shown for the Rb atom.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.67.041401

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A selective excitation technique based on light interference is proposed to control quantum systems by frequency-chirped laser fields. Interference of two identical, delayed and phase-shifted pulses is used to modulate the laser spectrum and project it onto the time domain. By adjusting the delay and phase shift, selected transitions can be brought into the holes'' of the spectrum and thus remain nonexcited. The possibility to selectively manipulate or even shut down'' resonant transitions, making the medium transparent to the field, is shown for the Rb atom.
A fs time-resolved selective control of multilevel systems using superposition of two identical, frequency-chirped fields is proposed and demonstrated. By adjusting the delay between the pulses, a selected transition of the Rb doublet was brought into the "holes" of the interference pattern and remained nonexcited, thus allowing to manipulate another transition by the laser field as if it were an isolated two-level system. Based on light interference, this technique needs neither strong driving field intensities nor controlling the chirp direction to achieve the selectivity.
This paper shows that a single laser pulse with a chirped frequency can generate trapped superposition of the ground states in the /spl Lambda/-atom when the width of the transform-limited laser pulse envelope frequency spectrum (without chirp) is smaller but the peak Rabi frequency of the pulse is larger than frequency interval between the two ground states of the /spl Lambda/-atom. This study also analyzes the propagation of the frequency-chirped laser pulse in a medium consisting of /spl Lambda/-atoms analytically and by exact numerical solution of coupled Bloch-Maxwell equations. The results show that there is nearly absorptionless propagation of the single frequency-chirped laser pulse on distances more than 40 times the pulse duration, when the formulated above conditions of negligible excitation of the /spl Lambda/-atom are fulfilled. The described effect of absorptionless propagation of the single frequency-chirped pulse is referred to as electromagnetically self-induced transparency.
The resonant absorption, emission, and scattering of light are the fundamental optical processes that have been used both to probe matter and to manipulate light itself. In the last decade there has been essential progress in coherent control of both linear and nonlinear optical responses based on resonant excitation of atomic coherence in multilevel quantum systems. Some interesting and useful phenomena, resulting from coherent control of absorption and the group index, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without inversion, and ultra-slow group velocity of light have been widely studied. This work is focused on coherent control of refractive index and resonant fluorescence in multilevel medium. \n \nWe suggest two promising schemes for resonant enhancement of the refractive index with eliminated absorption and propose their implementation in transition element doped crystals with excited state absorption and in a cell of Rb atoms at natural abundance. We show how to use one of these schemes for spatial variation of the refractive index via its periodic resonant increase/decrease, remarkably keeping at the same time zero absorption/gain. It opens the way to production of transparent photonic structures (such as distributed Bragg reflectors, holey fibers, or photonic crystals) in a homogeneous resonant atomic media such as dielectrics with homogeneously distributed impurities, atomic, or molecular gases. These optically produced photonic structures could easily be controlled (including switching on/off, changing amplitude and period of modulation) and would be highly selective in frequency, naturally limited by the width of the optical resonance. \n \nWe also derive the optical fluorescence spectra of a three-level medium driven by two coherent fields at the adjacent transitions in a general case when all three transitions are allowed. We show that coherent driving can efficiently control the distribution of intensities between the fluorescent channels. In particular, the total intensity of fluorescence at the transition which is not driven by the optical fields may essentially exceed the fluorescence intensity at the driven transitions under the condition of two-photon resonance. This counter-intuitive effect is due to depletion of the intermediate state via atomic interference.
We present a scheme of population transfer between two metastable (ground) states of the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ atom without considerable excitation of the atom using single frequency-chirped laser pulses. The physics of the process is generation of the ``trapped'' superposition of the ground states by the laser pulse at sufficiently high laser peak intensity. The main conditions for realization of this regime are the following: The width of the transform-limited laser pulse envelope frequency spectrum (without chirp) must be smaller and the peak Rabi frequency of the pulse must be larger than the frequency interval between the two ground states of the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ atom. During the frequency chirp, the laser pulse must first come into resonance with the transition from the initially occupied ground state to the excited state and after that with the transition between the excited and second initially empty ground states. In the case when the envelope frequency spectrum width (without chirp) of the pulse exceeds the frequency interval between the two ground states, we show a possibility of controllable generation of superposition of the ground states with a controllable excitation of the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ atom.
Perturbative chirped pulse excitation leads to oscillations of the excited state amplitude. These coherent transients are governed by interferences between resonant and off-resonant contributions. Control mechanisms in both frequency and time domain are used to modify these dynamics. First, by applying a phase step in the spectrum, we manipulate the phase of the oscillations. By direct analogy with Fresnel zone lenses, we then conceive highly phase-amplitude modulated pulse shapes that slice destructive interferences out of the excitation time structure and enhance the final population.