Journal of the Optical Society of America B
Phase-controlled optical switching and slow- and weak-light solitons in a coherent molecular system with permanent dipole moments
Qiong Du, Chao Hang, Guoxiang Huang
Abstract
We investigate the linear and nonlinear light pulse propagations in a three-level Λ-type molecular system with permanent dipole moments via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We find that EIT characters in such a system depend strongly on the phase of control field, based on which a phase-controlled optical switch can be designed. We show that the Kerr nonlinearity of the system can be largely enhanced due to the control-field-induced quantum interference effect. We derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation for the evolution of the probe-field envelope and demonstrate that it is possible to generate stable slow- and weak-light solitons in the system.