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Physical Review Letters

Distortionless Propagation of Light Through an Optical Medium

Michael D. Crisp

Published Apr 21, 1969• 69 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The equations describing the propagation of optical radiation through a medium of two-level atoms are presented in a way that emphasizes their relation to Poynting's theorem. Two classes of solutions which propagate without distortion are discussed. These solutions, together with the well-known hyperbolic secant solution, are analogous to the three possible types of motions of a simple pendulum.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.22.820

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The equations describing the propagation of optical radiation through a medium of two-level atoms are presented in a way that emphasizes their relation to Poynting's theorem. Two classes of solutions which propagate without distortion are discussed. These solutions, together with the well-known hyperbolic secant solution, are analogous to the three possible types of motions of a simple pendulum.
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We derive model equations for optical pulse propagation in a medium described by a two-level Hamiltonian, without the use of the slowly varying envelope approximation. Assuming that the resonance frequency of the two-level atoms is either well above or well below the inverse of the characteristic duration of the pulse, we reduce the propagation problem to a modified Korteweg--de Vries or a sine-Gordon equation. We exhibit analytical solutions of these equations which are rather close in shape and spectrum to pulses in the two-cycle regime produced experimentally, which shows that soliton-type propagation of the latter can be envisaged.
Since in quantum optics light is represented in terms of photons, light propagation through a linear medium is discussed quantum mechanically in this paper by following the multiple-scattering process of one incident photon from the medium. To treat the photon and the medium on the same quantum footing, the medium is assumed to be an ensemble of uniformly distributed identical two-level atoms. It is found that inside the medium the incident photon follows the same propagation rules as a plane wave does in the classical domain, and has a possibility to become entangled with the atoms. It is also found that when interacting with a two-level test atom outside the medium, the output photon appears to be formally in a single mode identical to that of the incident photon.
In this complement we discuss several examples of optical phenomena in media where the refractive index depends nonlinearly on the intensity , known as optical Kerr media. This nonlinear effect exists in all materials, even isotropic ones, like glass or fused silica, but it is particularly marked in certain physical systems to be exemplified in Section 7B.1. After investigating the propagation of light through such media in Section 7B.2, we shall discuss three applications of the optical Kerr effect (which can be studied in any order). We begin by describing a bistable optical system , when this nonlinear medium is inserted in a Fabry–Perot cavity (Section 7B.3). We then study phase conjugate mirrors and examine their potential applications in adaptive optics (Section 7B.4). Finally, we discuss certain effects occurring during the propagation of an isolated wave, bounded either transversely or temporally, in a Kerr medium, and describe self-focusing effects (Section 7B.5) and self-phase-modulation effects (Section 7B.6). In particular, we shall show that nonlinear effects and dispersion effects can compensate to produce stable structures known as solitons , which maintain their shape during propagation. Examples of third-order nonlinearities Nonlinear response of two-level atoms We begin by studying a simple case of a nonlinear interaction, namely a two-level quantum system under the effects of a plane wave.