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Slow and Fast Light (SL)

Experimental Comparison between the Index of Refraction in Strongly Driven and Degenerate Two-Level Systems

R.-H. Rinkleff, L. Spani Molella, A. Rocco, Andreas Wicht, K. Danzmann

Published Jan 1, 2008• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is well known that quantum coherence and interference are important mechanisms in tailoring optical properties of atoms and molecules. Examples are the enhancement of the index of refraction, large optical Kerr nonlinearities, and the cancellation of absorption. Nonlinear media provide a variety of new applications, such as ultra-slowing of light propagation, superluminal light propagation, ultra-sensitive magnetometer or high-finesse broadband optical cavities.

DOI
10.1364/sl.2008.jmb24

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It is well known that quantum coherence and interference are important mechanisms in tailoring optical properties of atoms and molecules. Examples are the enhancement of the index of refraction, large optical Kerr nonlinearities, and the cancellation of absorption. Nonlinear media provide a variety of new applications, such as ultra-slowing of light propagation, superluminal light propagation, ultra-sensitive magnetometer or high-finesse broadband optical cavities.
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Recently, there has been increasing interest on the idea of controlling optical responses using atomic-coherence or quantum-interferences. Typical example may be the concept of electomagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) [1]. The key idea of EIT is to apply a strong-coupling field between a metastable and upper states to dress them equivalently as two states decaying to a common level or continuum, and to induce the transparency at the split-center of Autler-Townes components. This idea of EIT may open new possibilities to various coherent processes, such as lasing without population inversion, enhanced refractive index without absorption], slow group velocity without absorption, enhanced nonlinearity without absorption, etc.
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