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Optics Express

Suppressing normal mode excitation by quantum interference in a cavity-atom system

Jiepeng Zhang, Gessler Hernandez, Yifu Zhu

Published May 16, 2008• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Collective coupling of multiple atoms with a cavity mode produces two normal modes that are separated in energy by Vacuum Rabi splitting. We show that the normal mode excitation of the cavity-atom system can be suppressed by coupling a control laser to the atomic system from free space. The control laser splits the normal mode of the cavity-atoms system and opens two excitation channels. The destructive quantum interference between the two channels renders the cavity-atoms system opaque to the light coupled to the cavity-atom system. We demonstrate suppression of the normal mode excitation by the destructive quantum interference in an experiment using cold Rb atoms confined in an optical cavity.

DOI
10.1364/oe.16.007860

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Collective coupling of multiple atoms with a cavity mode produces two normal modes that are separated in energy by Vacuum Rabi splitting. We show that the normal mode excitation of the cavity-atom system can be suppressed by coupling a control laser to the atomic system from free space. The control laser splits the normal mode of the cavity-atoms system and opens two excitation channels. The destructive quantum interference between the two channels renders the cavity-atoms system opaque to the light coupled to the cavity-atom system. We demonstrate suppression of the normal mode excitation by the destructive quantum interference in an experiment using cold Rb atoms confined in an optical cavity.
Collective coupling of multiple atoms with a cavity mode produces two normal modes that are separated in energy by Vacuum Rabi splitting. We show that quantum coherence and interference can be produced by a control laser that couples the atoms confined in the cavity mode from free space, which leads to suppression of the normal mode excitation, or polariton excitation of the cavity-atom system. The control laser splits the normal mode of the cavity-atoms system and opens two excitation channels. The destructive quantum interference between the two channels renders the cavity-atoms system opaque to the light coupled into the cavity mode. We demonstrate suppression of the normal mode (polariton) excitation by the destructive quantum interference in an experiment with cold Rb atoms confined in an optical cavity.
We study atomic coherence and interference in four-level atoms confined in an optical cavity and explores the interplay between cavity QED and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The destructive interference can be induced in the coupled cavity-atom system with a free-space control laser tuned to the normal mode resonance and leads to suppression of the normal mode excitation. Then by adding a pump laser coupled to the four-level atoms from free space, the control-laser induced destructive interference can be reversed and the normal mode excitation is restored. When the free-space control laser is tuned to the atomic resonance and forms a Λ-type EIT configuration with the cavity-atom system, EIT is manifested as a narrow transmission peak of a weak probe laser coupled into the cavity mode. With the free-space pump laser driving the cavity-confined atoms in a four-level configuration, the narrow transmission peak of the cavity EIT can be split into two peaks and the dressed intra-cavity dark states are created analogous to the dressed states in free space. We report experimental studies of such coherently coupled cavity-atom system realized with cold Rb atoms confined in an optical cavity and discuss possible applications in quantum nonlinear optics and quantum information science.
When a coherently prepared atomic medium is confined in an optical cavity, the atomic coherence and interference manifested by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be manipulated and enhanced by the collective atom–cavity coupling and the cavity feedback. We present an experimental study of the light transmission through an optical cavity coupled with coherently prepared cold Rb atoms. In the frequency domain, the cavity transmission spectrum exhibits spectral peaks representing the cavity normal modes associated with the multi-atom vacuum Rabi splitting and the intra-cavity dark state manifested by the combined EIT effects of the absorption suppression and the steep normal dispersion. In the time domain, a light pulse coupled into the cavity mode propagates with a slow group velocity and the propagation time delay is significantly increased by the cavity feedback.
We propose a scheme of the interaction-free all-optical switching in a multiatom cavity-QED system consisting of three-level atoms confined in a cavity and coupled by a free-space control laser. A signal laser field is coupled into the cavity and its transmission through and reflection from the cavity form two output channels. We show that the free-space control laser induces destructive quantum interference in the excitation of the atom-cavity normal mode, which can be used to switch on or off the output signal light of the reflection and the transmission channels. When the control light is coupled to the atoms, the input signal light is nearly totally reflected and this means that there is no direct coupling of the control light and the signal light through the cavity-confined atoms. We present analytical and numerical calculations that show that this type of the interaction-free all-optical switching in the coupled cavity-atom system can be realized with high switching efficiencies and at low light intensities.
We investigate the transmission spectrum of an optical cavity coupled with four-level atoms. Multiple normal-mode splitting peaks of the strongly coupled atom-cavity system are obtained as single cavity mode couples three separated atomic transitions simultaneously. We employ a confocal optical cavity and an ensemble of cold Rb-85 atoms for cavity quantum electrodynamics. We observe four normal-mode splitting peaks of the cavity transmission in the strong coupling regime due to collective enhancement of the atom-cavity coupling strength by ensemble of cold atoms. The experimental observations are consistent with the theoretical analysis. The multiple normal-mode excitation in the strongly coupled multi-level atom-cavity system may lead to practical application for realizing multi-channel all-optical devices.
We show that by manipulating quantum interference in a multi-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) system, the nonlinear excitation of the cavity-atom polariton can be resonantly enhanced while the linear excitation is suppressed. Under the appropriate conditions, it is possible to selectively enhance or suppress the polariton excitation with two free-pace laser fields. We report on an experiment with cold Rb atoms in an optical cavity and present experimental results that demonstrate such interference control of the CQED excitation and its direct application to studies of all-optical switching and cross-phase modulation of the cavity-transmitted light.