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Physical Review A

Spectral structures induced by electron shelving

Gerhard C. Hegerfeldt, Martin Bodo Plenio

Published Oct 1, 1995• 43 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of laser-driven three-level systems in the V or $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ configuration where one transition is metastable. If the laser driving the weak transition has a sufficiently small Rabi frequency we find an extremely narrow structure in the resonance fluorescence spectrum of the strong transition. Analytical expressions approximating the spectrum are given and the properties of the spectrum are discussed. With the help of a simplified model of resonance fluorescence emitted on the strong transition we are able to show that the origin of the narrow peak can be traced back to electron shelving, i.e., to the existence of light and dark periods in the resonance fluorescence emitted on the strong transition.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.52.3333

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Canadian Journal of Physics•Nov 1, 1980•13 citations
We investigate the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of laser-driven three-level systems in the V or \ensuremathΛ\ensuremath{\Lambda}\ensuremathΛ configuration where one transition is metastable. If the laser driving the weak transition has a sufficiently small Rabi frequency we find an extremely narrow structure in the resonance fluorescence spectrum of the strong transition. Analytical expressions approximating the spectrum are given and the properties of the spectrum are discussed. With the help of a simplified model of resonance fluorescence emitted on the strong transition we are able to show that the origin of the narrow peak can be traced back to electron shelving, i.e., to the existence of light and dark periods in the resonance fluorescence emitted on the strong transition.
We investigate the absorption spectrum of a laser-driven V system in which one of the upper levels is metastable. If the Rabi frequency of the laser driving the metastable transition is sufficiently small we find an extremely narrow peak in the stationary absorption spectrum of a weak probe on the strong transition. We give analytical expressions approximating the stationary absorption spectrum. The absorption spectrum of a two-level system is investigated for the case where an upper limit for the time separation of successive emissions is given. The absorption spectrum then exhibits a delta-function-like peak and using this we then show that the origin of the narrow peak in the absorption spectrum can be traced back to electron shelving, i.e. to the existence of light and dark periods in the resonance fluorescence emitted on the strong transition.
We describe the resonance fluorescence spectrum of an atomic three-level system where two of the states are coupled by a single monochromatic laser field. The influence of the third energy level, which interacts with the two laser-coupled states only via radiative decays, is studied in detail. For a suitable choice of parameters, this system gives rise to a very narrow structure at the laser frequency in the fluorescence spectrum which is not present in the spectrum of a two-level atom. We find those parameter ranges by a numerical analysis and use the results to derive analytical expressions for the additional narrow peak. We also derive an exact expression for the peak intensity under the assumption that a random telegraph model is applicable to the system. This model and a simple spring model are then used to describe the physical origins of the additional peak. Using these results, we explain the connection between our system, a three-level system in the V configuration where both transitions are laser driven, and a related experiment that was recently reported.
We investigate time-dependent spectra of the intermittent resonance fluorescence of a single, laser-driven, three-level atom due to electron shelving. After a quasistationary state of the strong transition, a slow decay due to shelving leads to the steady state of the three-level system. The long-term stationary spectrum consists of a coherent peak, an incoherent Mollow-like structure, and a very narrow incoherent peak at the laser frequency. We find that in the ensemble-average dynamics, the narrow peak emerges during the slow decay regime, after the Mollow spectrum has stabilized but well before an average dark time has passed. The coherent peak, being a steady-state feature, is absent during the time evolution of the spectrum.
The temporal behavior of a single quantum system may contain information, for instance, about macroscopic dark periods in electron shelving, which is washed out or even lost in ensemble averages. The same is true in principle for spectral information. For example, for an atom with light and dark periods one might try to spectrally analyze the light emitted in a light period of given length or, more generally, the light emitted into one solid angle while monitoring the temporal emission in another solid angle. Considering different emission behaviors one may get different spectra, i.e., spectra that are dependent on the conditions imposed. In this paper, such questions, in particular the notion of spectrum in a light period, are studied. To this end we generalize the recent quantum jump approach to include resonance-fluorescence spectra of single atoms. We explicitly show that the theory developed in this paper easily generalizes, e.g., to absorption spectra. We apply the theory to a V system that has one metastable level and that may exhibit intermittent fluorescence when driven by two lasers. We show that the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of the complete ensemble differs substantially from that observed in a light period. A physical explanation of this behavior is presented. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The electron shelving effect significantly improves the control accuracy of medium energy level transitions, enabling high-sensitivity fluorescence signal detection in precision spectroscopy and quantum metrology and thus allowing a more precise investigation of the microstructure and dynamical behavior of the medium. Here, we investigate theoretically the fluorescence properties of bichromatically driven three-level atoms with electron shelving effect under strong coupling conditions. The physical process by which the electron shelving effect leads to the appearance of two types of peaks in the central peaks of multiple Mollow triplets is explored. This phenomenon is attributed to the different orientations of electric dipole moments in fluorescence emission process caused by a nonresonant weak field. Due to the disappearance of the central broad peak of the central Mollow triplet caused by the quantum interference, the pure sharp peak survives completely induced by the electron shelving effect. The physical picture of the two-mode squeezing effect in out-of-phase quadrature noise spectra originating from the asymmetrical fluorescence operators induced by the nonresonant weak field is revealed. Moreover, the frequency range and degree of two-mode squeezing can be improved by appropriately increasing the Rabi frequency of the weak field. These results not only are helpful for realizing the electron shelving effect experiment in polychromatic strong-coupling systems but also provide a scheme for developing nonclassical spectroscopy and quantum precision measurement based on the electron shelving effect.
We have studied the fluorescence spectra arising from the interaction of a three-level atom with two strong electromagnetic fields whose initially populated modes are equal to the two atomic transition frequencies, respectively. The Green's function formalism has been used to calculate the excitation spectrum of the system. An expression for the spectral function describing the excitation spectrum of the system has been derived in a closed form in the limit of high photon densities. Numerical computation of the expression for the spectral function indicates that at each transition frequency there may exist either one pair or two pairs or three pairs of sidebands, in addition to the central peak, depending upon the relative strength of the Rabi frequencies involved.