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Quantum and Semiclassical Optics Journal of the European Optical Society Part B

Interference effects on the spontaneous emission spectrum from two coupled upper levels

Shi-Yao Zhu

Published Jun 1, 1995• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Interference effects between decay processes from two upper levels, which are coupled by the same vacuum modes to a lower level and are driven by a strong coherent field, on the spontaneous emission spectrum have been studied. The interference could lead to population trapping in the upper levels, two dark lines in the spectrum and spectral narrowing. The spectral narrowing depends on the ratio of the two upper levels' decay rates and the Rabi frequency of the driving field. One can change the spectrum by varying the Rabi frequency, an experimentally controllable parameter.

DOI
10.1088/1355-5111/7/3/014

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Interference effects between decay processes from two upper levels, which are coupled by the same vacuum modes to a lower level and are driven by a strong coherent field, on the spontaneous emission spectrum have been studied. The interference could lead to population trapping in the upper levels, two dark lines in the spectrum and spectral narrowing. The spectral narrowing depends on the ratio of the two upper levels' decay rates and the Rabi frequency of the driving field. One can change the spectrum by varying the Rabi frequency, an experimentally controllable parameter.
We study the influence of quantum interference on the spontaneous emission from an excited two-level atom when either the atomic upper or lower level is coupled by a coherent field to a third, usually higher-lying, state. In the case of the upper level coupling, destructive quantum interference between two competing decay amplitudes produces a dark line in the emission spectrum, a phenomenon that should not be confused with the well known population trapping, and a narrowing of one of the two side lobes that make up the spectral profile. Quantum interference is absent, instead, in the case of the lower level coupling, and the spectrum modified by the external driving field is just the incoherent superposition of two Lorentzian lines. We suggest a physical interpretation of these results. In addition, we compare the analytic predictions of the simplest nontrivial versions of these models with more realistic but nonanalytic descriptions and show, numerically, that the interference effects persist in the upper level case even when additional complications are taken into account.
The quantum interference in the spontaneous-emission spectrum of a driven atom, when the upper level of the atomic transition is coupled to a third level via a classical driving field, results in a dark line in the absence of the atomic decays. The existence of the dark line is independent of the Rabi frequency associated with the driving field. There is no such dark line in the spontaneous-emission spectrum when, instead of the upper level, the lower level is coupled to a third level via a driving field. In this paper, we include the level decays, incoherent pumping, and the finite bandwidth of the driving field in our analysis and study their role in the spontaneous-emission spectrum in the two configurations.
The modification of the spontaneous emission spectrum has been studied in this paper in a four-level doubly driven N-type atomic system. In the presence of two coherent fields, emphasis has been given to studying the spectral distribution of spontaneous emission in the relaxation process of the initially prepared excited level. The phenomenon of quantum interference dynamically induced in the system by these fields can significantly change the spontaneous emission spectrum. We have shown the emergence of a two-peak spectrum where two widely separated symmetric peaks are associated with a sharp dark line at their mid-position. At different dynamic conditions, we have also shown that two symmetric peaks may appear in the spectrum with an extended dark zone between them. Depending on the values of the Rabi frequencies and the detunings of the external fields, one can achieve a large enhancement of very narrow spectral components within the spontaneous emission line shape under different conditions. The phenomenon of suppression of spectral line and the selective cancellation of spontaneous emission have also been discussed. The results shown in various cases are analysed by considering all possible dressed states corresponding to the bare state model. The influence of collision-induced effects on the spontaneous emission spectrum is investigated as a conditional case.
We discuss quantum interference effects in the resonance fluorescence spectrum of a \ensuremath{\Lambda} three-level atom when the lower-level doublet is driven by a coherent field. The interfering pathways that lead to the same final state involve both spontaneous decays and stimulated transitions, and differ from one another by an odd number of stimulated processes induced by the driving field. As a consequence, the interference structures depend upon the phase of the coherent field, an effect that is absent in other resonance fluorescence phenomena. The phase dependence of the quantum interference contribution is especially significant when the level splitting of the driven doublet is comparable to the spontaneous decay rates of the competing optical paths.