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Physical Review A

Polychromatic-field-induced transparency and absorption in a three-level Λ system

Jiepeng Zhang, Jun Xu, Gessler Hernandez, Xiangming Hu, Yifu Zhu

Published Apr 13, 2007• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report an experimental study of atomic coherence and interference in a three-level $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ system of cold Rb atoms driven by multicolor coupling and probe fields. The multicolor coupling and probe fields open multiple channels for a two-photon Raman process. Interference between the open channels leads to rich spectral features in the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ system and can be controlled by the phase of the probe field. The constructive-interference-induced transparency or the destructive-interference-induced absorption with a subnatural linewidth can be selectively created near the atomic resonance.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.75.043810

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We report an experimental study of atomic coherence and interference in a three-level \ensuremathΛ\ensuremath{\Lambda}\ensuremathΛ system of cold Rb atoms driven by multicolor coupling and probe fields. The multicolor coupling and probe fields open multiple channels for a two-photon Raman process. Interference between the open channels leads to rich spectral features in the \ensuremathΛ\ensuremath{\Lambda}\ensuremathΛ system and can be controlled by the phase of the probe field. The constructive-interference-induced transparency or the destructive-interference-induced absorption with a subnatural linewidth can be selectively created near the atomic resonance.
Atomic coherence and interference manifested by electromagentically induced transparency (EIT) and coherent population trapping (CPT) plays an important role in the current studies of atom-photon interactions and has found numerous applications in optical physics. EIT is created in a three-level atomic system by a coupling field and results in destructive interference between two excitation paths of a weak probe laser interacting with the atomic medium. This leads to suppressed linear absorption and rapidly varying atomic dispersion for the probe laser near the atomic resonance, which provides the platform for a variety of applications such as nonlinear optics at low light levels, slow light manipulation, and quantum state engineering for photons and atoms. Here we extend the simple three-level EIT system to more complicated and versatile configurations in a multi-level atomic system coupled by multiple laser fields. We show that with multiple excitation paths provided by different laser fields, phase-dependent quantum interference is induced: either constructive or destructive interference can be realized by varying the relative phases among the laser fields. Two specific examples are discussed. One is a three-level system coupled by bichromatic coupling and probe fields, in which the phase dependent interference between the resonant two-photon Raman transitions can be initiated and controlled. Another is a four-level system coupled by two coupling fields and two probe fields, in which a double-EIT configuration is created by the phase-dependent interference between three-photon and one-photon excitation processes. We analyze the coherently coupled multi-level atomic system and discuss the control parameters for the onset of constructive or destructive quantum interference. We describe two experiments performed with cold Rb atoms that can be approximately treated as the coherently coupled three-level and four-level atomic systems respectively. The experimental results show the phase-dependent quantum coherence and interference in the multi-level Rb atomic system, and agree with the theoretical calculations based on the coherently coupled three-level or four-level model system.
We study the steady optical response of a five-level atomic system in the parametric region where resonant two-photon transitions are much stronger than far-detuned single-photon transitions. We find that the concurrent absorption of two weak probe fields can be well suppressed in a narrow spectral region to attain electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) via quantum destructive interference between different two-photon transition pathways. To gain a deeper insight into relevant physics, we adiabatically reduce this five-level system with trivial single-photon transitions into a three-level system with vanishing single-photon transitions by deriving an effective Hamiltonian. The two systems have almost the same two-photon absorption spectra exhibiting typical EIT features but are a little different in fine details. This means that most characteristics of two-photon quantum destructive interference are reserved after the adiabatic elimination approximation. In addition, we verify by numerical calculations that the two-photon EIT spectra are insensitive to the dipole-dipole interaction of cold Rydberg atoms when the uppermost level has a high principle quantum number.
In a three-level atomic system coupled by two equal-amplitude laser fields with a frequency separation 2\ensuremath{\delta}, a weak probe field exhibits a multiple-peaked absorption spectrum with a constant peak separation \ensuremath{\delta}. The corresponding probe dispersion exhibits steep normal dispersion near the minimum absorption between the multiple absorption peaks, which leads to simultaneous slow group velocities for probe photons at multiple frequencies separated by \ensuremath{\delta}. We report an experimental study in such a bichromatically coupled three-level \ensuremath{\Lambda} system in cold 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms. The multiple-peaked probe absorption spectra under various experimental conditions have been observed and compared with the theoretical calculations. \textcopyright{} 2003 American Institute of Physics.
Electromagnetically induced transparency may lead to suppression of two-photon absorption in a four-level atomic system. This phenomenon is manifested by destructive quantum interference among multiple excitation paths created by a coherent coupling field. We report an experimental observation of such suppression of two-photon absorption in cold 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms.
A new scheme is suggested to manipulate the probe transitions (and hence the optical properties of atomic vapors) via double-control destructive and constructive quantum interferences. The influence of phase coherence between the two control transitions on the probe transition is also studied. The most remarkable feature of the present scheme is that the optical properties (absorption, transparency and dispersion) of an atomic system can be manipulated using this double-control multi-pathway interferences (multiple routes to excitation). It is also shown that a four-level system will exhibit a two-level resonant absorption because the two control levels (driven by the two control fields) form a dark state (and hence a destructive quantum interference occurs between the two control transitions). However, the present four-level system will exhibit electromagnetically induced transparency to the probe field when the three lower levels (including the probe level and the two control levels) form a three-level dark state. The present scenario has potential applications in new devices (e.g. logic gates and sensitive optical switches) and new techniques (e.g. quantum coherent information storage).