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Physical Review A

Temporally programmed free-induction decay

N. W. Carlson, Yu Bai, William Randall Babbitt, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

Published Sep 1, 1984• 30 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have performed an experiment in atomic Yb vapor which provides the first demonstration that complex laser pulse-shape information can be stored in and recalled from the spectral distribution of the population in one terminal level of an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition. The information is stored as a result of interference between two temporally separated laser excitation pulses, one of which possesses a complex temporal structure. It is recalled as a feature of a third-excitation-pulse-induced free-decay signal. Recalled signals up to one percent as intense as the original were observed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.30.1572

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We have performed an experiment in atomic Yb vapor which provides the first demonstration that complex laser pulse-shape information can be stored in and recalled from the spectral distribution of the population in one terminal level of an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition. The information is stored as a result of interference between two temporally separated laser excitation pulses, one of which possesses a complex temporal structure. It is recalled as a feature of a third-excitation-pulse-induced free-decay signal. Recalled signals up to one percent as intense as the original were observed.
We point out that the frequency‐selective nature of the light‐matter interaction can be utilized to effect the storage of a spectral image (Fourier transform) of a temporally structured light pulse in the absorption profile of an inhomogeneously broadened atomic ensemble, and that the stored information can be subsequently recalled in the form of a free‐induction‐decay signal. Applications of this process to optical data storage are discussed. We also consider the interaction of a phase‐controlled, amplitude‐grated, resonant laser field with the atoms in a collimated atomic beam. We describe experiments wherein suitably prepared atoms are placed in pure stationary‐states (dressed states) of the atom + laser‐field system, and note that atoms in pure dressed states should have interesting spectral and dynamical properties.
We demonstrate that frequency-chirped laser excitation pulses may be employed to generate coherent transient signals possessing the same temporal profile as a particular excitation pulse. In comparison with the short, fixedfrequency pulses used in previous studies of this effect, chirped pulses can be temporally longer, of lower intensity, and hence easier to generate. The experiment was performed on the 555.6-nm transition of vapor-phase atomic ytterbium, and pulse-shape information was stored in a coherence between excited-state Zeeman levels. A simple theoretical analysis of our results is presented.
We report the observation of coherent two-photon free-induction decay (FID) in a three-level Lambda system excited by a low-intensity square-modulated laser pulse. Using electromagnetically induced transparency in an Rb85 cold atomic cloud, for what we believe to be the first time, we observe FID signals with coherence time exceeding the relevant atomic excited-state natural lifetime. Because of the on-resonance enhancement, the two-photon FID signal can be observed at the falling edge without using heterodyne means.
A theoretical analysis of the optical coherent transients that arise when a sample of two-level atoms is irradiated by a sequence of three broad-bandwidth pulses is presented. The first two pulses have a relative delay time of order of the correlation time of the pulse fluctuations and are sent into an atomic vapor from different directions. These pulses, whose temporal width is much greater than the delay time, can be correlated with one another and can be strong enough to saturate the two-level atomic transition. The third pulse is weak, noncorrelated with the first two, and is delayed in time so that it does not overlap them. We present a detailed examination of the transient signal that is produced when the third pulse is scattered by the spatial gratings in the population difference of atoms created by the first two pulses. Taking into account the effects of inhomogeneous and homogeneous broadening, we calculate the intensity of the transient signal, emitted in different directions, as a function of delay time. The signal is found to depend dramatically on the intensities of the excitation pulses. It is shown that, for strong excitation pulses, there is a direct dependence of the signal on the cross-correlation time of pulses ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{\mathit{c}}^{12}$ that does not exist when the pulses are weak. In particular, the strongest signals exhibit a peak of width of order ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{\mathit{c}}^{12}$. This peak can have a very narrow dip near its maximum whose width is much smaller than ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{\mathit{c}}^{12}$, if the pulses are fully correlated. We develop a representation of the time evolution of the Bloch vector of a two-level atom, driven by time-delayed pulses, that enables us to explain our results. In this representation, the two time-delayed pulses are replaced by two fully overlapping pulses having some effective amplitudes and atomic field detunings.