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Physical Review E

Nonlinear Bloch waves in resonantly doped photonic crystals

Artan Kaso, Sajeev John

Published Oct 18, 2006• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate the existence of self-consistent Bloch modes in resonant nonlinear photonic crystals with a complex, intensity-dependent, and frequency-dependent dielectric function. Such a dielectric response may arise by "doping" the photonic crystal with resonant quantum dots, atomic impurities, or other two-level light emitters. These exact solutions of the nonlinear electromagnetic wave equation exhibit Bloch periodicity and describe fundamental eigenmodes of an active photonic crystal under incoherent pumping. In a simple model two-dimensional photonic crystal, doped with active two-level atoms, the optical field intensity of these waves shows a laserlike threshold behavior with pumping. This appears to be a universal property of active, nonlinear photonic crystals and photonic band gap materials, arising from multidirectional distributed feedback. We describe an iterative technique for computing the detailed properties of these exact, self-consistent nonlinear waves in strongly scattering photonic crystal architectures with regions of gain and loss.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.74.046611

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We demonstrate the existence of self-consistent Bloch modes in resonant nonlinear photonic crystals with a complex, intensity-dependent, and frequency-dependent dielectric function. Such a dielectric response may arise by "doping" the photonic crystal with resonant quantum dots, atomic impurities, or other two-level light emitters. These exact solutions of the nonlinear electromagnetic wave equation exhibit Bloch periodicity and describe fundamental eigenmodes of an active photonic crystal under incoherent pumping. In a simple model two-dimensional photonic crystal, doped with active two-level atoms, the optical field intensity of these waves shows a laserlike threshold behavior with pumping. This appears to be a universal property of active, nonlinear photonic crystals and photonic band gap materials, arising from multidirectional distributed feedback. We describe an iterative technique for computing the detailed properties of these exact, self-consistent nonlinear waves in strongly scattering photonic crystal architectures with regions of gain and loss.
We derive the properties of self-induced transparency (SIT) solitary waves in a one-dimensional periodic structure doped uniformly with resonance two-level atoms. In our model, the electromagnetic field is treated classically and the dopant atoms are described quantum mechanically. The resulting solitary waves take the form of ultrashort (picosecond) laser pulses which propagate near the band edge of the nonlinear photonic band gap (PBG) material doped with rare-earth atoms such as erbium. Solitary wave formation involves the combined effects of group velocity dispersion (GVD), nonresonant Kerr nonlinearity, and resonant interaction with dopant atoms. We derive the general Maxwell-Bloch equations for a nonlinear PBG system and then demonstrate the existence of elementary solitary wave solutions for frequencies far outside the gap where GVD effects are negligible and for frequencies near the photonic band edge where GVD effects are crucial. We find two distinct new types of propagating SIT solitary wave pulses. Far from Bragg resonance, we recapture the usual McCall-Hahn soliton with hyperbolic secant profile when the nonlinear Kerr coefficient ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}=0.$ However, when the host nonresonant Kerr coefficient is nonzero, we obtain the first new type of soliton. In this case, the optical soliton envelope function deviates from the hyperbolic secant profile and pulse propagation requires nontrivial phase modulation (chirping). We derive the dependence of the solitary wave structure on the Kerr coefficient ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)},$ the resonance impurity atom density, and the detuning of the average laser frequency from the atomic transition. When the laser frequency and the atomic transition frequencies are near the photonic band edge we obtain the second type of soliton. To illustrate the second type of soliton we consider two special cases. In the first case, GVD facilitates the propagation of an unchirped SIT-gap soliton moving at a velocity fixed by the material's parameters. The soliton structure changes dramatically as the laser frequency is tuned through the atomic resonance. In the second illustrative case we set the Kerr coefficient ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}=0.$ In this case, the solution is a chirped pulse which arises from the balance between GVD and the resonance interaction with the dopant atoms. Finally, we show that under certain circumstances, these solitary wave solutions may persist even in the presence of (subpicosecond) dipolar dephasing of the dopant atoms and absorption losses of the host PBG material, provided that the system is incoherently pumped. These results may be relevant to the application of PBG materials as optical devices in fiber-optic networks.
We study the dielectric response of impurity two-level atoms in a photonic band gap (PBG) to an applied laser field. In this system, the atoms may exchange energy coherently by resonance dipole-dipole interaction (RDDI) which is assumed to be strong compared to the spontaneous emission rate. When the applied Rabi frequency exceeds the RDDI energy scale, nonlinear saturation of the absorptive part of the susceptibility occurs while the real part of the nonlinear susceptibility remains large. This suggests that doped PBG materials may act as nearly lossless, but highly nonlinear dielectrics.
We study the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) of light from an atomic system embedded in a photonic crystal and coherently pumped by a laser field. In our study, the electromagnetic field is treated classically and the atomic system is described quantum mechanically. Considering a decomposition of the pump and Stokes fields into the Bloch modes of the photonic crystals and using a multiscale analysis, we derive the Maxwell-Bloch equations for SRS in photonic crystals. These equations contain effective parameters that characterize the SRS gain, the nonlinear atomic response to the electromagnetic field, and the group velocity and that can be calculated in terms of the Bloch modes of the unperturbed photonic crystal. We show that if the pump laser frequency is tuned near a photonic band edge and the atomic system is carefully chosen such that the Stokes mode matches another photonic band edge, low-threshold, enhanced Raman amplification is possible. Possible physical realizations of SRS in photonic crystals are also discussed.
We theoretically demonstrate the population switching of quantum dots (QD's), modeled as two-level atoms in idealized one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystals (PC's) by self-consistent solution of the Maxwell-Bloch equations. In our semiclassical theory, energy states of the electron are quantized, and electron dynamics is described by the atomic Bloch equation, while electromagnetic waves satisfy the classical Maxwell equations. Near a waveguide cutoff in a photonic band gap, the local electromagnetic density of states (LDOS) and spontaneous emission rates exhibit abrupt changes with frequency, enabling large QD population inversion driven by both continuous and pulsed optical fields. We recapture and generalize this ultrafast population switching using the Maxwell-Bloch equations. Radiative emission from the QD is obtained directly from the surrounding PC geometry using finite-difference time-domain simulation of the electromagnetic field. The atomic Bloch equations provide a source term for the electromagnetic field. The total electromagnetic field, consisting of the external input and radiated field, drives the polarization components of the atomic Bloch vector. We also include a microscopic model for phonon dephasing of the atomic polarization and nonradiative decay caused by damped phonons. Our self-consistent theory captures stimulated emission and coherent feedback effects of the atomic Mollow sidebands, neglected in earlier treatments. This leads to remarkable high-contrast QD-population switching with relatively modest (factor of 10) jump discontinuities in the electromagnetic LDOS. Switching is demonstrated in three separate models of QD's placed (i) in the vicinity of a band edge of a 1D PC, (ii) near a cutoff frequency in a bimodal waveguide channel of a 2D PC, and (iii) in the vicinity of a localized defect mode side coupled to a single-mode waveguide channel in a 2D PC.
Photonic crystals doped with resonant atoms allow for uniquely advantageous nonlinear modes of optical propagation. The first type of mode is self-induced transparency (SIT) solitons and multidimensional localized “bullets” propagating at photonic-bandgap frequencies. Such modes can exist even at ultraweak intensities (few photons) and therefore differ substantially either from solitons in Kerr-nonlinear photonic crystals or from SIT solitons in uniform media. The second type of mode is cross coupling between pulses exhibiting electromagnetically induced transparency and SIT gap solitons. We show that extremely strong correlations (giant cross-phase modulation) can be formed between the two pulses. These features may find applications in high-fidelity classical and quantum optical communications.
We investigate superradiant lasing in 1D photonic crystal taking into account both homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening in a two-level active medium. The latter may be based on, e.g., the quantum-well heterostructures and the fibers activated by color centers where Bragg structure can be fabricated artificially by means of a periodic modulation of the cladding layers. The truncated Maxwell-Bloch equations for the counter-propagating waves, the polarization and inversion of an inhomogeneously broadened two-level medium are used to analyze numerically the interplay between the back-scattering, amplification, dispersion, and de-phasing of waves. It is found that, if the photonic band gap is less than the coherent amplification bandwidth, there is a wide range of the pumping and relaxation parameters of a two-level medium where superradiant lasing exists and results in generation of a quasi-periodic and/or chaotic series of powerful and short pulses similar to those of Dicke superfluorescence. It is the cavity mode selection due to distributed feedback caused by the resonant Bragg structure which is responsible for the existence of superradiant lasing. Typical parameters of superradiant photonic-crystal lasers, including lengths, photonic band gaps and relaxation rates, are indicated.