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Physical Review Letters

Selective Excitation of Dressed Atomic States by Use of Phase-Controlled Optical Fields

Yue Bai, Arjun G. Yodh, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

Published Sep 16, 1985• 86 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have studied the response of atoms in a dilute collimated atomic beam to transient phase-controlled resonant excitation fields. We demonstrate that the use of such excitation makes it possible to place the atoms into stationary states of the coupled atom-field system. We show that these states, which are easily visualized in the two-level-atom vector model, are equivalent to the dressed states of resonance fluorescence theory. Studies of atoms in pure dressed states should allow interesting tests of basic atom-field interactions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.55.1277

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We experimentally investigate the transient dynamics of two-level atoms under bichromatic optical excitation. Novel new dynamical behavior is observed that may be interpreted classically in terms of the vector model or in a modem vein as resonant monochromatic excitation of dressed atoms. We show the first observation of dressed-atom optical mutations. We also show that the system dynamics depend critically on the initial relative phase of the two excitation-field components and that controlled bichromatic excitation may lead to complete dressed-state polarization of initially ground-state atoms.
We experimentally investigate the transient dynamics of two-level atoms driven by a bichromatic optical excitation field when the bichromatic field is configured to contain a strong resonant component and a weaker nonresonant perturber component. We concentrate on the experimental situation in which the two-level atoms are prepared in an eigenstate (dressed state) of the coupled atom-resonant field system prior to exposure to the perturber field. We experimentally demonstrate perturber-field-induced, optical nutation of the dressed-state populations. We show how nutation of the dressed-state populations manifests itself in the fluorescence signal of the transiently driven atoms. We observe that the detuning of the perturber field from transitions between the dressed states of the atom-resonant field system plays the same role in determining the character of the dressed-state optical nutation as the atom-field detuning in the case of the ordinary optical nutation of atomic populations. Our experiments demonstrate the utility of the dressed-atom picture in understanding the complex dynamics of bichromatically driven atoms in a variety of circumstances.
We study the transient fluorescence spectra of two-level atoms driven by a strong optical field when the atoms are initially prepared in pure dressed states of the atom-field Hamiltonian. Spectra obtained here differ qualitatively from those observed in the steady state. In the case of steady-state resonant excitation, a three-peaked spectrum symmetric about the laser frequency is obtained; with pure-dressed-state preparation, the symmetry of the spectrum about the driving field is broken---one side peak is initially enhanced and the other is initially suppressed. Furthermore, the temporal oscillations of fluorescence intensity observed in previous calculations of transient fluorescence spectra appropriate to atoms prepared in a superposition of dressed states [J. H. Eberly et al., J. Phys. B 13, 217 (1980)] are suppressed when pure-dressed-state preparation is considered.
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We point out that the frequency‐selective nature of the light‐matter interaction can be utilized to effect the storage of a spectral image (Fourier transform) of a temporally structured light pulse in the absorption profile of an inhomogeneously broadened atomic ensemble, and that the stored information can be subsequently recalled in the form of a free‐induction‐decay signal. Applications of this process to optical data storage are discussed. We also consider the interaction of a phase‐controlled, amplitude‐grated, resonant laser field with the atoms in a collimated atomic beam. We describe experiments wherein suitably prepared atoms are placed in pure stationary‐states (dressed states) of the atom + laser‐field system, and note that atoms in pure dressed states should have interesting spectral and dynamical properties.