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Journal of Physics A Mathematical Nuclear and General

Solitons in nonlinear optics. I. A more accurate description of the 2π pulse in self-induced transparency

J. Chris Eilbeck, John Gibbon, P. J. Caudrey, R. Bullough

Published Sep 1, 1973• 169 citations

Abstract

A more accurate description of the 2 pi pulse of self-induced transparency is obtained. This is an exact solution of an approximate form of the Maxwell-Bloch equations in which only backscattering is neglected; the equations are valid at densities less than about 10 18 atoms cm -3 . At such densities the 2 pi sech pulse of McCall and Hahn (1967, 1969) remains a good approximate well into the picosecond range. The more accurate solution is chirped by a factor proportional to the square of the ratio of the spectral width of the pulse to its carrier wave frequency. The stability of this pulse solution and other N soliton solutions of the approximate Maxwell-Bloch equations is demonstrated.

DOI: 10.1088/0305-4470/6/9/009

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A more accurate description of the 2 pi pulse of self-induced transparency is obtained. This is an exact solution of an approximate form of the Maxwell-Bloch equations in which only backscattering is neglected; the equations are valid at densities less than about 10 18 atoms cm -3 . At such densities the 2 pi sech pulse of McCall and Hahn (1967, 1969) remains a good approximate well into the picosecond range. The more accurate solution is chirped by a factor proportional to the square of the ratio of the spectral width of the pulse to its carrier wave frequency. The stability of this pulse solution and other N soliton solutions of the approximate Maxwell-Bloch equations is demonstrated.

Exact single-soliton solutions of the modified system of Maxwell-Bloch equations, in which the dipole-dipole interactions of the atoms of a dense resonant medium are taken into account, are obtained. Two propagation regimes are analyzed: “coherent,” where the pulse duration is much shorter than both relaxation times ( T p ≪ T 1 , T 2 ), and “incoherent,” where the pulse duration falls between the relaxation times ( T 2 ≪ T p ≪ T 1 ). It is predicted, for the first time, that soliton propagation of an ultrashort pulse is possible in a dense resonant absorbing medium in an incoherent interaction regime. The differences between the amplitude and phase characteristics of the solitons considered and the corresponding characteristics of the solitons for McCall-Hahn self-induced transparency are noted.

Resonant absorbing media having many atoms within a cubic resonance wavelength can exhibit large frequency chirps in pulse propagation due to dipole-dipole interactions among the atoms. Analytic solutions are obtained for invariant pulse propagation in such a medium consisting of interacting two-level atoms. Departures from the McCall-Hahn results include nonhyperbolic secant pulse shapes and different than 2π-area pulses. In addition, the excitation of the medium is comparatively suppressed for the same group velocity. The results are interpreted to suggest new experiments.

A systematic perturbation expansion with respect to the small parameter ${(\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\omega})}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\tau}$ being the duration of the pulse and $\ensuremath{\omega}$ the optical frequency, is introduced. This method is applied to the problem of self-induced transparency for sharp-line absorbers at exact resonance. Corrections to the McCall and Hahn solution are obtained which describe the propagation of the form-preserving pulse with modulated frequency and slightly changed shape, group velocity, and wave vector. Earlier results by Marth, Holmes, and Eberly on phase modulation and wave-vector shift are confirmed.

The form invariant coherent pulse propagation in semiconductors excited at 1s-exciton resonance is studied analytically using the reduced semiconductor Maxwell-Bloch equations. The sech-shaped pulse solution for excitonic self-induced transparency (SIT) is presented, showing significant difference in comparison with the well known SIT solution for non-interacting two-level systems. In contrast to 2π pulses in atomic systems, the phenomenon of SIT of interacting excitons in semiconductors occurs for the pulses of area 1.07π. Possible applications of the SIT solitons in semiconductor all-optical switching devices are discussed.

We reveal the existence of an optical self-induced-transparency soliton family in a two-level absorbing system down to the few-cycle limit. Based on the few-cycle envelope approximation, we introduce a systematical method of reducing the Maxwell-Bloch equations beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation and characterize the parameter space to achieve slow and fast lights. Verified by direct numerical simulations with full vectorial Maxwell-Bloch equations, we also give the relationships for a number of optical cycles on area theory and pulse group velocity, which demonstrate possible coherent photon-matter interactions.