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Physical Review A

Controlling the polarization rotation of an optical field via asymmetry in electromagnetically induced transparency

Bo Wang, Shujing Li, Jie Ma, Hai Wang, K. C. Peng, Min Xiao

Published May 3, 2006• 66 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a mechanism to achieve coherent control of the polarization rotation of an optical field in a multilevel electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) system in rubidium atoms. By choosing a properly polarized coupling field and transition energy levels, the symmetry of the atomic medium to the propagation of two orthogonal polarization components of a weak linearly polarized probe field can be broken, which leads to a coherently controlled rotation of the probe field polarization. This mechanism of coherently controlled optical polarization rotation makes use of asymmetry in EIT subsystems for the two circular polarization components of the probe beam with a contribution from different transition strengths (due to different Clebsh-Gordan coefficients) in this multilevel atomic system.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.73.051801

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We propose and experimentally demonstrate a mechanism to achieve coherent control of the polarization rotation of an optical field in a multilevel electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) system in rubidium atoms. By choosing a properly polarized coupling field and transition energy levels, the symmetry of the atomic medium to the propagation of two orthogonal polarization components of a weak linearly polarized probe field can be broken, which leads to a coherently controlled rotation of the probe field polarization. This mechanism of coherently controlled optical polarization rotation makes use of asymmetry in EIT subsystems for the two circular polarization components of the probe beam with a contribution from different transition strengths (due to different Clebsh-Gordan coefficients) in this multilevel atomic system.
We investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the phenomenon of polarization rotation of a weak, linearly polarized optical (probe) field in an atomic system with multiple three-level electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) subsystems. The polarization rotation angle can be controlled by a circularly polarized coupling beam, which breaks the symmetry in number of EIT subsystems seen by the left and right circularly polarized components of the weak probe beam. A large polarization rotation angle (up to 45\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}) has been achieved with a coupling beam power of only 15mW15\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mW}15mW. Detailed theoretical analyses including different transition probabilities in different transitions and Doppler-broadening are presented and the results are in good agreements with the experimentally measured results.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a process in which we can control the behavior of an atomic medium to switch on or off transmittance signals at multiple frequencies in ladder-type electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of 5S1/2−5P3/2−5D3/2 transition of Rb87 atoms. By adjusting the polarizations of the applied optical fields, the amplitudes of the transmittance spectra at multiple frequency channels can be controlled. This mechanism originates from the competition between EIT subsystems and single-photon absorption with a contribution from different transition strengths. Moreover, we also analyze the influences of the intensity and detuning of the coupling field on the transmitted signals when two lasers are perpendicular, linearly polarized lights, and observe electromagnetically induced absorption due to quantum constructive interference. Detailed theoretical analyses, including the different strengths in different transitions and Doppler broadening, agree with the experimental observations.
We investigate an all-optical, pump-probe scheme for the polarization rotation of linearly polarized light in an atomic medium. A circularly polarized control light is shown to play the role of a static magnetic field via a Zeeman-like ac Stark interaction and to induce the optical Faraday rotation (OFR) of the probe light. As a model system, we consider a stationary atom with $nS\text{\ensuremath{-}}nP\text{\ensuremath{-}}nD$ level scheme without electronic or nuclear spin. In addition to OFR, we find that electromagnetically induced transparency for the three-level atom and circular dichroism also contribute to the polarization change. We characterize these three effects over different frequency ranges through an explicit calculation of the fractional transmission and the output polarization of the probe light. Our results are compared with the $nS\text{\ensuremath{-}}nP\text{\ensuremath{-}}(n+1)S$ scheme, which has been previously studied both theoretically and experimentally. We also compare the optically induced Faraday effect with the Faraday effect from a static magnetic field. We propose an experimental situation to test the theory and address the possibility of producing an atomic medium that is both optically active and transparent.
A four-level inverse Y-type atomic system with a microwave-driven field contained in a unidirectional ring cavity is proposed for controlling the optical bistability behavior with application on all-optical switching. Two circularly polarized components from a weak linearly-polarized probe beam are interacted separately by two transitions of this medium. A coherent coupling field derived another atomic transition. Under the steady state condition, we can control the occurrence of the optical bistability by modulating different parameters, such as the probe detuning ( ), the electronic cooperation parameter (C), the magnitude of electromagnetic field (B), and left- or right- handed circular polarized beams. Also, it is found that the stable output field of the optical cavity can be controlled by adjusting the intensity of the input field. It is demonstrated that the transmission coefficient of two orthogonally polarized beams at different frequencies can be achieved by adjusting the magnitude of the external magnetic field. It is found that the threshold of the optical bistability can be controlled by the magnitude of the external magnetic field. Also, it is shown that the optical bistability can be converted to optical multistability by switching the two orthogonally polarized beams. In this paper, in the case of the steady-state and transient response, we investigated the effect of external magnetic field on optical bistability of a four-level atomic system in the presence of strong coherent laser beam. Here, a laser probe signal consists of two left- and right- handed circular polarized beams which are interacted by two different transitions. The optical system provides a new experimental method to test optical bistability theory.
A theoretical model using density matrix approach has been presented to show the polarization dependence of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in cascade multilevel atomic system. EIT has already been investigated both theoretically and experimentally by using three-level system in lambda (Λ), vee (V), and cascade (Ξ) configurations. However there is asymmetry in absorption measurement. To understand this asymmetry we introduce hyperfine levels in EIT cascade system. We present a five-level atomic system, which is a simple case of87Rb. This study has been extended to investigate the polarization dependence of probe and control lasers on EIT. It has been observed that there is significant change in transparency window for different laser polarizations.
Recent years have seen vast progress in the generation and detection of structured light, with potential applications in high capacity optical data storage and continuous variable quantum technologies. Here we measure the transmission of structured light through cold rubidium atoms and observe regions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), using the phase profile as control parameter for the atomic opacity. With q plates we generate a probe beam with azimuthally varying phase and polarization structure, and its right and left circular polarization components provide the probe and control of an EIT transition. We observe an azimuthal modulation of the absorption profile that is dictated by the phase and polarization structure of the probe laser. Conventional EIT systems do not exhibit phase sensitivity. We show, however, that a weak transverse magnetic field closes the EIT transitions, thereby generating phase-dependent dark states which in turn lead to phase-dependent transparency, in agreement with our measurements.