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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Progress in hollow core photonic crystal fiber for atomic vapour based coherent optics

Thomas D. Bradley, Yingying Wang, M. Alharbi, Coralie Fourcade-Dutin, Brian J. Mangan, Natalie V. Wheeler, Fetah Benabid

Published Jan 12, 2012• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on progress in different hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) design and fabrication for atomic vapor based applications. We have fabricated a Photonic bandgap (PBG) guiding HC-PCF with a record loss of 107dB/km at 785nm in this class of fiber. A double photonic bandgap (DPBG) guiding HC-PCF with guidance bands centred at 780nm and 1064nm is reported. A 7-cell 3-ring Kagome HC-PCF with hypocycloid core is reported, the optical loss at 780nm has been reduced to 70dB/km which to the best of our knowledge is the lowest optical loss reported at this wavelength using HC-PCF. Details on experimental loading of alkali metal vapours using a far off red detuned laser are reported. This optical loading has been shown to decrease the necessary loading time for Rb into the hollow core of a fiber. The quantity of Rb within the fiber core has been enhanced by a maximum of 14% through this loading procedure.

DOI
10.1117/12.915281

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We report on progress in different hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) design and fabrication for atomic vapor based applications. We have fabricated a Photonic bandgap (PBG) guiding HC-PCF with a record loss of 107dB/km at 785nm in this class of fiber. A double photonic bandgap (DPBG) guiding HC-PCF with guidance bands centred at 780nm and 1064nm is reported. A 7-cell 3-ring Kagome HC-PCF with hypocycloid core is reported, the optical loss at 780nm has been reduced to 70dB/km which to the best of our knowledge is the lowest optical loss reported at this wavelength using HC-PCF. Details on experimental loading of alkali metal vapours using a far off red detuned laser are reported. This optical loading has been shown to decrease the necessary loading time for Rb into the hollow core of a fiber. The quantity of Rb within the fiber core has been enhanced by a maximum of 14% through this loading procedure.
This thesis describes developments in atomic vapour loading in hollow core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF) for fabrication of atomic vapour loaded photonic microcells (PMC). These developments have been targeted at addressing some of the issues associated with loading atomic vapours in confined waveguiding geometries such as increased dephasing and physio-chemical wall absorptions. Atomic vapour loaded HC-PCF and PMC’s have applications in laser metrology, coherent optics and magneto optical spectroscopy. State of the art HC-PCF have been fabricated for loading with atomic vapour including both photonic bandgap (PBG) guiding and inhibited coupling (IC) hypocycloidal core shape Kagome HC-PCF. Record loss of 70 dB/km has been achieved in IC hypocycloid core shape Kagome HC-PCF in the spectral region centred at 800 nm. This fibre retains excellent single mode propagation combined with large core and increased optical bandwidth in comparison with specialist PBG HC-PCF optimised for operation around 800 nm. Aluminosilicate sol-gel coatings have been developed and successfully applied to the inner core wall of HC-PCF’s to reduce the atomic vapour surface interaction. Confining atomic vapours in micron scaled HC-PCF results in increased dephasing rates because of the frequent atom wall collisions. Anti relaxation coating materials have been applied to the inner core wall and the longitudinal relaxation time has been measured in coated and uncoated fibres utilising a magneto optical technique. Additionally sub Doppler transparencies are investigated in anti relaxation coated and uncoated HC-PCF.
This thesis describes developments in the fabrication and applications of photonic microcells (PMCs). A PMC is a length of gas-filled hollow core-photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF) that is hermetically sealed by splicing both ends to standard single mode fibre. A PMC enables integration of gas-filled HC-PCF into all-fibre systems with low insertion loss. PMCs have applications in coherent optics and metrology, where specific HC-PCF designs are advantageous. Two types of state-of-the-art HC-PCF, double bandgap HCPCF and large-pitch Kagome fibre, are fabricated. The double bandgap HC-PCF extends the usable bandwidth of the fibre by providing low loss guidance across two transmission bands. The large-pitch Kagome HC-PCF has a record low attenuation of 0.3 dB/m at 800 nm, while maintaining broadband guidance, which is partially attributed to the core shape. Three distinct developments in the field of PMCs are described. Firstly, a record length 20 metre acetylene-filled PMC is fabricated which is the key component in the first demonstration of an all-fibre slow and fast light system based on electromagnetically induced transparency. Secondly, a technique based on fibre tapering is presented which enables low loss integration of large core Kagome HC-PCFs into PMC form. Thirdly, micromirrors are developed and integrated with HC-PCF to confine light in the longitudinal dimension, providing a means to fabricate multi-pass PMCs. Two uncoated micromirrors are used to form a low finesse microcavity in Kagome HC-PCF, with record high fringe visibility using reflections from a silica/air junction. In collaboration with Kansas State University, an acetylene optical reference with sub-10 KHz accuracy and the first acetylene laser based on population inversion are demonstrated using Kagome HC-PCF.Finally, this thesis reports on rubidium vapour loading in HC-PCF with the ultimate aim being the production of a rubidium-filled PMC for applications in metrology. Preliminary results highlight the limited loading distance of the current technique and modified loading schemes are outlined accordingly.
We report a comparative study on dephasing mechanisms between inner core coated and uncoated sections of the same Kagome hypocycloid-shaped core hollow core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCF) filled with rubidium vapor. The comparison is performed by measuring the atomic polarization relaxation and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) linewidth in Rb loaded polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) inner wall coated and bare silica core Kagome HC-PCF. The measurements show a polarization relaxation time of 32μs in a PDMS coated Kagome HC-PCF and 24μs in uncoated Kagome HC-PCF. A minimum EIT linewidth of 6.2±0.8MHz is achieved in PDMS coated Kagome HC-PCF, and 8.3±0.9 MHz for the uncoated Kagome HC-PCF.
We report a study on de-phasing mechanisms in Rb-filled hypocycloidal core shape Kagome hollowcore photonic crystal fibers. We experimentally measure the atomic polarization relaxation rates in Rb loaded bare silica Kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fibers at six different geometries. The measurements show a polarization relaxation time ranging from from ~ 16 μs for a 30 μm core inner-diameter HC-PCF to ~34 μs for a 96 μm core inner-diameter HC-PCF. The measured polarization lifetimes are much longer than the typical transit time for the atomic vapor at room temperature. We perform the theoretical analysis of the mechanisms of atomic de-coherence taking to account the fiber geometries and further experimental parameters. The analysis demonstrates that at given experimental conditions the main contribution to the polarization rotation signal comes from the transversally slow atoms. The effective temperature of the polarized atoms is than lower than the room temperature. We perform the Monte-Carlo simulations to calculate the atomic polarization relaxation rate in fibers with different inner core radius and negative curvature parameters. The calculated values are in a good agreement with the experimental results.
This thesis presents the development of photonic microcells for use as the host for coherent optics phenomena and related applications. A photonic microcell consists of a length of hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF) with a gas-filled core that is spliced to conventional optical fibre at either end to seal the gas within the fibre. Towards the goal of demonstrating and assessing the coherence properties of quantum optical effects in photonic microcells, the fabrication of two types of HC-PCF is presented. The established photonic bandgap HC-PCF offers extremely low transmission loss of ~10 dB/km over kilometre distances. However, the fibre has a limited transmission bandwidth of ~50 THz and exhibits modal coupling unfavourable for many applications. Work is presented on the tailoring of this fibre by control and shaping of the core-surround in order to improve its modal properties. A second type of HC-PCF is based on a large-pitch lattice, whose guidance relies on a new mechanism. This fibre exhibits a much improved bandwidth (>1000 THz) and has a relatively higher but still practical loss of ~1 dB/m. The development of photonic microcells at microbar pressure level and with low optical insertion loss is shown, an important step in the improvement of the technology for coherent optics applications which will take advantage of the extreme gas-laser interaction efficiency achieved in HC-PCF. Finally, quantum optical effects are demonstrated in HC-PCF and photonic microcells loaded with both the molecular gas acetylene and atomic vapour rubidium. The observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in acetylene-filled HC-PCF represents the first such observation in a molecular gas, while the use of a photonic microcell allows a comparison of many experimental configurations to explore the coherence properties of coherent optical systems in the core of a HC-PCF. Furthermore, EIT is observed unambiguously in a rubidium loaded HC-PCF for the first time, and the anti-relaxation effects of a polymer coating demonstrated in this configuration.
There is growing interest in using Hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) in atomic based laser metrology and quantum optics. Atom-filled HC-PCF represents a compact atomic vapour cell, which thanks to its long light-matter interaction distance enhances spectroscopic feature contrasts and optical nonlinearities. These advantages make atom-filled HC-PCF an outstanding candidate for numerous applications such as miniature atomic clocks, magnetometers, single photon sources, Rydberg-blockade based NOT gates, atom-light entanglement etc. Furthermore, the small geometric core size of HC-PCF (5 to 100 μm) and large inner wall surface volume enhance atom-surface effects like physicochemical processes, surface material adsorption, Van der Waals (VW) interaction and Casimir Polder forces, which play a significant role in spectroscopic features that strongly differ from the conventional macroscopic vapor cells. Here we report on experimental observation of wall surface induced sub-Doppler transparencies in Rb-filled Kagome HC-PCF, which dramatically contrast with conventional sub-Doppler transparencies generated techniques (e.g. SAS, EIT). The present transparencies are generated by using one single laser beam injected into Rb loaded Kagome HC-PCF.