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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Active optical micro-resonators seen as mesoscopic photonic atoms

Yann G. Boucher, Yannick Dumeige, Patrice Féron

Published Apr 25, 2008• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Exploiting the formal analogy between the transfer function of a micro-resonator and the optical susceptibility of an atomic medium, we investigate the spectral and energetic properties of active cavities seen as mesoscopic "photonic atoms". The resemblance is not limited to linear regime; a structural equivalent can be found for such fundamental processes as spontaneous emission, stimulated absorption and emission, saturation of the active medium or induced transparency.

DOI
10.1117/12.780799

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The spatial inhomogeneity of absorption coefficient of the space between mirrors, filled by an optically active gas, is analyzed in quantum optical terms. It was theoretically shown, that the quantization of electromagnetic field in a cavity (optical resonator) can reveal the spatial inhomogeneity of absorption or re-emission ability of the optically active medium. It appears from the analytical calculations, the inhomogeneity is caused by the Doppler frequency shifts (including recoil effects) during the atom-photon collisions and the non-zero initial frequency width of the scanning signal. The proposed analytical representation of the absorption coefficient through the additive quantum optical terms gives deeper insight into intrinsic processes in the interacting with light matter.
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