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Slow and Fast Light (SL)

Diffusion of Slow-Light in Thermal Vapor

Ofer Firstenberg, M. Shuker, Rami Pugatch, Donald R. Fredkin, Nir Davidson, A. Ron

Published Jan 1, 2008• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the effect of thermal atomic motion on slow-light in electromagnetically-induced transparency medium. By incorporating the atomic motion and collisions into the Maxwell-Bloch equations, we find a spatial-frequency transmission filter that leads to diffusion-like behavior of the slow-light envelope.
DOI
10.1364/sl.2008.swd2

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EIT (Electromagnetically Induced Transparency) is a quantum optics phenomenon that occurs under specific conditions during a photon-atom interaction. Under such conditions, slow-light may be produced as a by-product of this effect. The purpose of this research is to adapt previous work on rubidium atoms in vapor cells to lithium atoms in a thermal beam. By doing so, the hope is to better understand the limitations of slow light and produce better results by eliminating atomic collisions within the system.
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We report slowed propagation and storage and retrieval of thermal light in warm rubidium vapor using the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We first demonstrate slowed propagation of the probe thermal light beam through an EIT medium by measuring the second-order correlation function of the light field using the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss interferometer. We also report an experimental study on the effect of the EIT slow-light medium on the temporal coherence of thermal light. Finally, we demonstrate the storage and retrieval of the thermal light beam in the EIT medium. The direct measurement of the photon number statistics of the retrieved light field shows that the photon number statistics are preserved during the storage and retrieval processes.