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Physical Review Letters

Spectrum of the Cavity-QED Microlaser: Strong Coupling Effects in the Frequency Pulling at Off Resonance

Hyun-Gue Hong, W. Seo, Younghoon Song, Moonjoo Lee, Hyunseok Jeong, Yong-il Shin, Wonshik Choi, Ramachandra Rao Dasari, Kyungwon An

Published Dec 12, 2012• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the first experimental observation of the cavity-QED microlaser spectrum, specifically the unconventional frequency pulling brought by a strong atom-cavity coupling at off resonance. The pulling is enhanced quadratically by the atom-cavity coupling to result in a sensitive response to the number of pumping atoms (2.1 kHz per atom maximally). Periodic variation of the pulling due to the coherent Rabi oscillation is also observed as the number of pumping atoms is increased across multiple thresholds.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.109.243601

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We report the first experimental observation of the cavity-QED microlaser spectrum, specifically the unconventional frequency pulling brought by a strong atom-cavity coupling at off resonance. The pulling is enhanced quadratically by the atom-cavity coupling to result in a sensitive response to the number of pumping atoms (2.1 kHz per atom maximally). Periodic variation of the pulling due to the coherent Rabi oscillation is also observed as the number of pumping atoms is increased across multiple thresholds.
Summary form only given. We have investigated the wave properties manifested in the first-order coherence or the spectrum of the cavity-QED microlaser by using a high-sensitive photon-counting-based heterodyne spectroscopy. The emission spectrum exhibited a linewidth broadening due to the quantum frequency pulling effect, namely the frequency pulling dependent on the intracavity atom- and photon-number intrinsic distributions, in the presence of nonzero atom-cavity detuning. We also observed a large per-atom frequency pulling (2.1 kHz maximally), enhanced by the strong atom-cavity coupling. Moreover, a stepwise change in the frequency pulling, associated with the coherent Rabi oscillations, was observed with the increased pumping over multiple thresholds.
The spectrum of the cavity-QED microlaser or micromaser is expected to show distinctive features of the coherent light-matter interaction, which are obscured in the conventional Schawlow-Townes linewidth theory. However, the spectral studies have been limited to resonant atom-cavity interaction so far. Here we consider the dispersive interaction in the off-resonance case, from which we uncover a quantum frequency pulling effect in the microlaser or micromaser spectrum. We present a quantum theory of the spectrum which introduces the notion of a frequency-pulling distribution associated with the photon number. In contrast to the conventional laser, periodic variation of the mean frequency pulling is observed with increasing pump parameter and it is attributed to the strong atom-cavity coupling. The pulling distribution gives rise to a spectral broadening, which can be dominant over the nondispersive broadening addressed in the previous works. We also developed a corresponding semiclassical theory and discuss how the introduction of the frequency shift fits in with the extended quantum theory.
We report the observation of multiple laser thresholds in the many-atom cavity QED microlaser. Traveling-wave coupling and a supersonic atom beam are used to create a well-defined atom-cavity interaction. Multiple thresholds are observed as jumps in photon number due to oscillatory gain. Although the number of intracavity atoms is large, up to $N\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{3}$, the dynamics of the microlaser agree with a single-atom theory. This agreement is supported by quantum trajectory simulations of a many-atom microlaser and a semiclassical microlaser theory. We discuss the relation of the microlaser with the micromaser and conventional lasers.
In the observation of multiple thresholds in the cavity-quantum electrodynamics microlaser there was deviation from the result predicted by uniform atom-cavity coupling theory, notably a frequency-pushing behavior. We analyze in the semiclassical limit the tilted injection of atoms, originally used to achieve a spatially uniform atom-cavity coupling, and show that the deviation originates from the interference between the induced dipole moments associated with two traveling-wave components of a standing-wave cavity mode. The criteria for sufficiently reduced interference and thus uniform atom-cavity interactions are derived in analytic considerations and verified by numerical calculation. Our analysis is well supported by experimental data.
Recently, cavity quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects in semiconductor microcavities have been of considerable interest since, in the weak-coupling regime they play an important role in selectively increasing spontaneous emission into the lasing mode of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL’s) [1,2], enabling low-threshold, high speed, and high efficiency. In a strong-coupling regime, the normal modes of the coupled system are superpositions of the exciton and cavity modes. Hence the impulsively excited system will evolve in time with the energy oscillating between the exciton and cavity modes. This is known as a vacuum-Rabi oscillation (VRO), with a frequency of Ω=d¯⋅E¯/@@h, where d¯ is the transition dipole moment of atoms and E¯ the vacuum-field strength. Of course, VRO are observable only when the cavity lifetime and exciton dephasing time are long enough compared to VRO period. Recently, Weisbuch et al. [3] have reported an observation of the normal-mode vacuum Rabi splitting in 2-D-exciton/planar-DBR microcavities. The observed splittings were as large as 6 meV in reflection and transmission spectra, implying 690-fs vacuum Rabi oscillations.