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Frontiers in Optics

Quantum Controllable Optical Selectivity of Single-Photon Excitation in a Dense Medium

Han Xu, Heping Zeng

Published Jan 1, 2003• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Selective multiphoton excitations can be achieved by tailoring the driving pulses to manipulate the outcome of the light-matter interaction. While single-photon transitions of single atoms driven by ultrashort pulses, dependent mainly on the resonant frequency component, and thus possesses no optical selectivity no matter how the excitation pulse shapes [1]. Interestingly, when an ultrashort pulse interacts with an optically dense medium, quantum controllable optical selectivity can be achieved in a single-photon process.

DOI
10.1364/fio.2003.mt1

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Selective multiphoton excitations can be achieved by tailoring the driving pulses to manipulate the outcome of the light-matter interaction. While single-photon transitions of single atoms driven by ultrashort pulses, dependent mainly on the resonant frequency component, and thus possesses no optical selectivity no matter how the excitation pulse shapes [1]. Interestingly, when an ultrashort pulse interacts with an optically dense medium, quantum controllable optical selectivity can be achieved in a single-photon process.
Selective resonant excitations can be realized with a shaped ultrashort pulse in an optically dense collection of multilevel individual atoms, where the near dipole-dipole interactions induce intrinsic frequency shifts of the atomic resonance. A proper transform-limited pulse and modulation of excitation pulses can be controlled to establish constructive or destructive quantum interference between different excitation pathways towards a desired selective resonant excitation, even driven by pulses with broadband spectral components.
We theoretically demonstrate that selective resonant excitation can be achieved in a dense collection of V-type three-level atoms by optimizing the pulse delay and peak intensity ratio of an applied phase-tailored ultrashort pulse pair. Near-dipole-dipole interaction plays an important role in the quantum control of selective excitations since it brings about an intrinsic frequency shift in the atomic resonance, which builds up various excitation pathways. As a consequence, we can control the quantum interference between various pathways by shaping the excitation pulse pair to steer the atomic excitation selectively toward a desired quantum state.
Multiphoton transitions can be reached by many routes through a continuum of virtual levels. We show that the transition probability of two-photon and multiphoton processes can be controlled by tailoring the shape of an ultrashort excitation pulse, so that the many paths leading to the final state interfere to give a desired probability amplitude. We analyze the effect of pulse shapes on N-photon absorption as well as on Raman transitions. We show theoretically that certain tailored dark pulses do not excite the system at all, while other shaped pulses induce transitions as effectively as transform limited pulses, even when their peak amplitudes are greatly reduced. These results are confirmed experimentally for two-photon transitions in atomic cesium.
The resonant absorption, emission, and scattering of light are the fundamental optical processes that have been used both to probe matter and to manipulate light itself. In the last decade there has been essential progress in coherent control of both linear and nonlinear optical responses based on resonant excitation of atomic coherence in multilevel quantum systems. Some interesting and useful phenomena, resulting from coherent control of absorption and the group index, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without inversion, and ultra-slow group velocity of light have been widely studied. This work is focused on coherent control of refractive index and resonant fluorescence in multilevel medium. \n \nWe suggest two promising schemes for resonant enhancement of the refractive index with eliminated absorption and propose their implementation in transition element doped crystals with excited state absorption and in a cell of Rb atoms at natural abundance. We show how to use one of these schemes for spatial variation of the refractive index via its periodic resonant increase/decrease, remarkably keeping at the same time zero absorption/gain. It opens the way to production of transparent photonic structures (such as distributed Bragg reflectors, holey fibers, or photonic crystals) in a homogeneous resonant atomic media such as dielectrics with homogeneously distributed impurities, atomic, or molecular gases. These optically produced photonic structures could easily be controlled (including switching on/off, changing amplitude and period of modulation) and would be highly selective in frequency, naturally limited by the width of the optical resonance. \n \nWe also derive the optical fluorescence spectra of a three-level medium driven by two coherent fields at the adjacent transitions in a general case when all three transitions are allowed. We show that coherent driving can efficiently control the distribution of intensities between the fluorescent channels. In particular, the total intensity of fluorescence at the transition which is not driven by the optical fields may essentially exceed the fluorescence intensity at the driven transitions under the condition of two-photon resonance. This counter-intuitive effect is due to depletion of the intermediate state via atomic interference.