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Physical Review A

Role of radiation trapping in degenerate four-wave-mixing experiments

M. Schiffer, G. Ankerhold, E. Cruse, Wulfhard K. Lange

Published Mar 1, 1994• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The process of degenerate four-wave mixing is studied experimentally in dense sodium vapor in a rare-gas atmosphere. The influence of trapped fluorescence light on the ground-state orientation is shown to be responsible for the observed strong reduction of saturation phenomena with increased sodium density. The interpretation is based on a simple model and is supported by results obtained by suppressing the fluorescence.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.49.r1558

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Journal of the Optical Society of America B•Dec 1, 1992•6 citations
The process of degenerate four-wave mixing is studied experimentally in dense sodium vapor in a rare-gas atmosphere. The influence of trapped fluorescence light on the ground-state orientation is shown to be responsible for the observed strong reduction of saturation phenomena with increased sodium density. The interpretation is based on a simple model and is supported by results obtained by suppressing the fluorescence.
Degenerate four-wave mixing in dense sodium vapor under conditions of strong pressure-induced Zeeman pumping is investigated. Thermal diffusion and its interplay with the Zeeman light shift are found to be responsible for the generation of a grating mechanism that is not sensitive to thermal washout. The effect can be observed experimentally after eliminating the influence of radiation trapping by the use of nitrogen as a buffer gas. Under these conditions large nonlinearities are produced which also influence the propagation of the signal wave via collision-aided circular birefringence.
Degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) in excited atoms is investigated as a probe of the excited-state density produced by collision-assisted transitions. Sodium atoms are excited to the 3P state by absorption of light in the extreme blue wing of the D lines in the presence of He, Ne and Ar perturbers. The rare-gas pressure dependence of the DFWM signals, resonantly enhanced by the 3P-4D transition, is studied to determine the regime where the signals give an unambiguous measure of the excited-state (3P) density. The observed behaviour is compared with a simple model of DFWM in absorbing media. Good qualitative agreement is obtained and the results illustrate the role of absorption, saturation and finite laser bandwidth. The technique allows small excited-state densities ( approximately 10 9 cm -3 ) to be detected with good temporal and spatial resolution.
Effects of radiation transport in the interaction of a laser beam with sodium vapor in an argon atmosphere are reported. Investigations of the temporal and spatial evolution of ground-state orientation, which is produced by optical pumping with a circularly polarized near-resonant laser beam, reveal a strong deviation from the expected pure diffusive behavior. Transverse profiles are narrowed considerably with increasing sodium density as well as with increasing pump intensity. The temporal decay of orientation is also drastically altered. A simplified nonlinear and nonlocal theoretical model of radiation trapping gives excellent qualitative agreement with the observations and allows an intuitive interpretation.
We present experiments of a laser with variable pulse energy and beam width saturating sodium vapor near the D1{D}_{1}D1​-line transition. At high optical depth and in a buffer gas atmosphere of argon, the effect of nonlinear radiation trapping is shown to drastically change the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of the excited-state population and of the fluorescence light trapped by the nonlinear medium. Besides observing the transient behavior of the fluorescence light, a pump-probe beam experiment enables us to gain a tomographic view inside the atomic vapor. Nitrogen as a buffer gas is used to compare with the situation where radiation trapping effects are negligible. Finally, numerical simulations based upon equations of radiative transfer for a two-level atomic system elucidate the role of nonlinear radiation trapping and support given interpretations of the experiments.
We have investigated degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) in a strongly absorbing molecular gas. A theory taking into account saturable absorption of the interacting beams is used to explain the dependence of the DFWM reflectivity on laser intensity and on the molecular number density. These parameters have a great influence on the observed spectra, owing to linear absorption that suppresses the DFWM signal in the line center of the molecular transitions. The great sensitivity of the spectra to the experimental conditions limits the applicability of DFWM for spectroscopic studies in absorbing media.