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Physical Review Letters

Nonlinear Optics at Low Light Levels

Stephen E. Harris, Lene Vestergaard Hau

Published Jun 7, 1999• 909 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show how the combination of electromagnetically induced transparency based nonlinear optics and cold atom technology, under conditions of ultraslow light propagation, allows nonlinear processes at energies of a few photons per atomic cross section.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.82.4611

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Summary form only given. The recent observation of slow light propagation by Harris and Hau (1999) motivates the study of nonlinear optical processes under conditions where slow group velocity, or equivalently large nonlinearity, is the dominant feature of the problem. By combining electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and cold atom technology, a sharp resonance is created with a transmission linewidth much less than the natural linewidth of the atoms. A pulse of light propagating in this medium has a phase velocity of c and a group velocity that can be less than 10/sup -7/ c. As a light pulse of sufficiently wide bandwidth enters a cold-atom, EIT medium, the pulse shape, electric field strength, and power density remain nominally unchanged. Concurrently, because the group velocity is decreased, the stored energy per volume must increase. This increase occurs by spatial compression of the travelling pulse. A pulse measuring 300 m in free space compresses to 30 /spl mu/m within the cold-atom medium.
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