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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

‘Storage of light’ in an atomic medium using electromagnetically induced absorption

A. M. Akulshin, A. Lezama, Andrei I. Sidorov, Russell McLean, Peter Hannaford

Published Nov 9, 2005• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Storage of light pulses in Rb vapour with bright Zeeman coherences and the associated enhanced absorption and steep negative dispersion is reported. Our experimental observations are qualitatively similar to the well-known proof-of-principle demonstration of light storage (D F Phillips et al 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 783), but obtained under conditions where electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) does not exist and the slow-light dark-state polariton model does not apply. Under the present experimental conditions the retrieved pulses obtained in atomic media with dark or bright Zeeman coherences have very similar exponentially decaying slopes which are independent of the shape of the incoming signal pulse. Numerical modelling based on the optical Bloch equations reproduces the essential features of the experimental observations.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/38/23/l01

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Storage of light pulses in Rb vapour with bright Zeeman coherences and the associated enhanced absorption and steep negative dispersion is reported. Our experimental observations are qualitatively similar to the well-known proof-of-principle demonstration of light storage (D F Phillips et al 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 783), but obtained under conditions where electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) does not exist and the slow-light dark-state polariton model does not apply. Under the present experimental conditions the retrieved pulses obtained in atomic media with dark or bright Zeeman coherences have very similar exponentially decaying slopes which are independent of the shape of the incoming signal pulse. Numerical modelling based on the optical Bloch equations reproduces the essential features of the experimental observations.
This thesis set out to investigate light storage based on dynamic electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a room-temperature atomic ensemble of rubidium as a means to provide a quantum memory for single-photons created by a single rubidium atom coupled to a high-finesse optical resonator. Setting up the light storage medium presented a new addition to the research group's portfolio of experimental techniques and led to investigations of EIT, slow light and stored light in warm rubidium-87 vapour. Lambda level schemes connecting Zeeman or hyperfine substates on the D1 and D2 lines were addressed in rubidium vapour cells containing different buffer gases and different isotopic fractions of rubidium-87 and rubidium-85. Single beam spectroscopy with a weak probe was used to characterise the vapour cells. A numerical method to fit the D line spectrum to a theoretical model to include isotopic fractions and collisional broadening of a buffer gas has been implemented. Temperature and isotopic fractions could be reliably extracted from the fit parameters. For an offset-stabilisation of two lasers to address a lambda level scheme connecting the two different hyperfine groundstates in rubidium a phase locked loop including a frequency divider has been designed and implemented. Light storage and retrieval has been demonstrated using a Zeeman scheme on the D1 line. Two microsecond long classical light pulses containing one million photons on average were stored and retrieved with an efficiency of 15% after a delay of one microsecond. Several methods of attenuating the strong co-propagating control laser beam to allow for lowering the signal pulse intensity in future experiments are discussed.
Electromagnetically induced transparency and light storing are discussed in the case of an atomic medium in a double $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ configuration. A polariton description of both phenomena is systematically introduced. Analytic expressions are given which allow one to predict the shapes and phases of both the transmitted pulses and the stored and released ones as well as the atomic coherence in the storage stage. A comparison of the numerical solutions of the Maxwell-Bloch equations with the results due to the polariton model proves a strong predictive power of the latter.
We study the modification of a traditional electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) stored-light technique that includes both EIT and four-wave mixing (FWM) in an ensemble of hot Rb atoms. The standard treatment of light storage involves the coherent and reversible mapping of one photonic mode onto a collective spin coherence. It has been shown that unwanted, competing processes such as four-wave mixing are enhanced by EIT and can significantly modify the signal optical pulse propagation. We present theoretical and experimental evidence to indicate that, while a Stokes field is indeed detected upon retrieval of the signal field, any information originally encoded in a seeded Stokes field is not independently preserved during the storage process. We present a simple model that describes the propagation dynamics of the fields and the impact of FWM on the spin wave.
This thesis presents theoretical models and results of numerical simulations describing the propagation of optical pulses through dense, thermal atomic vapours. In particular we investigate the nonlinear effects of optical solitons due to self-induced transparency (SIT) in two-level systems, optical simultons in V-type three-level systems and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in Λ-type systems, including the storage and retrieval of dark-state polaritons. An investigation is made into two-photon excitation of the 5D states of rubidium in a high-intensity beam including the hyperfine structure of the relevant atomic levels. Decay from these states to the 6P manifolds is ruled out as a cause of experimentally observed fluorescence due to the amount of power broadening associated with intensities necessary to provide any significant level of population in these highly excited states. We combine the nonlinear effects of optical solitons and EIT to explain experimentally observed steepened pulses in a V-type system in a micron-length cell. We explain the behaviour as the early formation of a simulton pulse drawn from a CW probe field by a strong coupling pulse, due to coherent population trapping. We predict that in a longer cell it may be possible to facilitate propagation of matched pulses, even when the transitions in the system have different propagation coefficients, as long as decoherence from collision broadening can be controlled. The fact that weak pulses can propagate with this scheme suggests an approach to achieving transparent propagation of single or few photon pulses distinct from, but related to, both SIT and EIT.
The recent prospect of efficient, reliable, and secure quantum communication relies on the ability to coherently and reversibly map nonclassical states of light onto long-lived atomic states. A promising technique that accomplishes this employs Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT), in which a strong classical control field modifies the optical properties of a weak signal field in such a way that a previously opaque medium becomes transparent to the signal field. The accompanying steep dispersion in the index of refraction allows for pulses of light to be decelerated, then stored as an atomic excitation, and later retrieved as a photonic mode. This dissertation presents the results of investigations into methods for optimizing the memory efficiency of this process in an ensemble of hot Rb atoms. We have experimentally demonstrated the effectiveness of two protocols for yielding the best memory efficiency possible at a given atomic density. Improving memory efficiency requires operation at higher optical depths, where undesired effects such as four-wave mixing (FWM) become enhanced and can spontaneously produce a new optical mode (Stokes field). We present the results of experimental and theoretical investigations of the FWM-EIT interaction under continuous-wave (cw), slow light, and stored light conditions. In particular, we provide evidence that indicates that while a Stokes field is generated upon retrieval of the signal field, any information originally encoded in a seeded Stokes field is not independently preserved during the storage process. We present a simple model that describes the propagation dynamics and provides an intuitive description of the EIT-FWM process.