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Physical Review Letters

Control of Population Flow in Coherently Driven Quantum Ladders

Ruth Garcia-Fernandez, Aigars Ekers, Леонід Петрович Яценко, Nikolay V. Vitanov, Klaas Bergmann

Published Jul 21, 2005• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A technique for adiabatic control of the population flow through a preselected decaying excited level in a three-level quantum ladder is presented. The population flow through the intermediate or upper level is controlled efficiently and robustly by varying the pulse delay between a pair of partly overlapping coherent laser pulses. The technique is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated in an experiment with Na2 molecules.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.95.043001

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A technique for adiabatic control of the population flow through a preselected decaying excited level in a three-level quantum ladder is presented. The population flow through the intermediate or upper level is controlled efficiently and robustly by varying the pulse delay between a pair of partly overlapping coherent laser pulses. The technique is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated in an experiment with Na2 molecules.
We study a method for controlling the flow of excitation through decaying levels in a three-level ladder excitation scheme in Na(2) molecules. Like the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), this method is based on the control of the evolution of adiabatic states by a suitable delayed interaction of the molecules with two radiation fields. However, unlike STIRAP, which transfers a population between two stable levels g and f via a decaying intermediate level e through the interaction of partially overlapping pulses (usually in a Lambda linkage), here the final level f is not long lived. Therefore, the population reaching level f decays to other levels during the transfer process. Thus, rather than controlling the transfer into level f, we control the flow of the population through this level. In the present implementation a laser P couples a degenerate rovibrational level in the ground electronic state X 1Sigma(g)+, v" = 0, j" = 7 to the intermediate level A 1Sigma(u)+, v' = 10, J' = 8, which in turn is linked to the final level 5 1Sigma(g)+, v = 10, J = 9 by a laser S, from which decay occurs to vibrational levels in the electronic A and X states. As in STIRAP, the maximum excitation flow through level f is observed when the P laser precedes the S laser. We study the influence of the laser parameters and discuss the consequences of the detection geometry on the measured signals. In addition to verifying the control of the flow of population through level f we present a procedure for the quantitative determination of the fraction kappa(f) of molecules initially in the ground level which is driven through the final level f. This calibration method is applicable for any stepwise excitation.
We present a detailed theory of a technique for the adiabatic control of the population flow through a preselected decaying excited level in a three-level ladder quantum system, as was experimentally demonstrated recently by Garcia-Fernandez et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 043001 (2005)]. Specifically, we consider a three-state excitation chain of bound states, 1-2-3, of successively increasing excitation energy, in which probability loss via fluorescence occurs from states 2 and 3. We describe a laser excitation scheme that can, by adjustment of laser parameters, alter at will the relative fraction of population that, starting from state 1, is ultimately lost through states 2 and 3. We present analytical results for the conditions under which quasiadiabatic passage can take place.
A chirped laser pulse transfers population from one level to another level accessible by one photon dipole transition. We have used a pair of phase-locked chirped pulses of same frequency instead of a single chirped pulse to achieve phase control over the population transfer and thus creating coherent population distribution in hydrogen molecule. Simultaneous actions of the phase controlled interference and rapid adiabatic passages due to chirped pulses lead to the control in population transfer from the ground X(v = 0, j = 0) level to the C(v = 2, j = 1) level. We have extended this two-level system to a three-level 1 + 1 ladder system for population transfer from the X level to the J(v = 2, j = 2) level via the C intermediate level using two pairs of phase-locked laser chirped pulses and have achieved laudable control over the coherent population distribution.
We demonstrate a method of adiabatic population transfer from a single quantum state into a coherent superposition of states. The transfer is executed with femtosecond pulses, spectrally shaped in a simple and intuitive manner, which does not require iterative feedback-controlled loops. In contrast to nonadiabatic methods of excitation, our approach is not sensitive to the exact value of laser intensity. We show that the population transfer is complete, and analyze the possibility of controlling the relative phases and amplitudes of the excited eigenstates. We discuss the limitations of the proposed control methods due to the dynamic level shifts and suggest ways of reducing their influence.
This work explores the effect of spontaneous emission on coherence generation and population transfer in a three-level ladder atomic system driven by two pulses in counterintuitive order. With adiabatic evolution and the weak-dephasing approximation, we find that a large coherence and population transfer can be achieved even with spontaneous decay rate. The maximum coherence and population transfer decrease with the increase of spontaneous decay rate from the highest state to intermediate state. But this effect can be compensated by shortening the pulse width and enlarging the delay time. Results show that the coherence generation and population transfer never depend on the spontaneous decay rate from the intermediate state to ground state. The validity of the analytic solution is examined by numerical calculation.
Enhanced population transfer from the lowest to the highest level in the three-state ladder 5s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5d of the rubidium atom by frequency-swept ultrashort laser pulses is observed if the frequency sweep first makes the pulse resonant with the 5s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5p transition, and later with the 5p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5d transition. With this ``intuitive'' scheme it is possible to achive complete population inversion via the intermediate level by two successive adiabatic passages. Complete inversion is also obtained by a ``counterintuitive'' direction of the frequency sweep, in which case population of the intermediate level during the pulse is strongly reduced.