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Physical Review Letters

Optical Sum-Frequency-Generation Interference in Atomic Sodium Vapor

Allen M. Flusberg, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG, Sven R. Hartmann

Published Mar 28, 1977• 38 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical sum-frequency generation, due to either noncollinear excitation, or magnetic-field mixing, or to their combined effect, is observed in atomic sodium vapor. Novel interference effects are observed and explained.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.38.694

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We have observed a new component in the signals produced by degenerate four-wave mixing of 5-nsec optical pulses by the DDD-line resonances of sodium vapor. This component is comparable in intensity to that previously observed from a grating pattern of excited sodium atoms, but arises rather from a grating of coherently aligned (but not optically pumped) ground-state atoms. This component exists when there are no spatial intensity beats between input waves.
Broadly tunable sum-frequency generation has been observed in a vapor of atomic sodium in the presence of a dc electric field. This field induces a\chi^{(2)}nonlinearity which is resonantly enhanced when the sum frequency corresponds to the energy separation between the ground state and an atomic Rydberg state. In a vapor of number density4 \times 10^{14}cm-3, we obtain an energy conversion efficiency as large as3 \times 10^{-4}and a\chi^{(2)}as large as1.2 \times 10^{-8}ESU. We have also observed sum-frequency generation in the absence of an applied dc field, and we relate these observations to mechanisms that have been proposed to explain this effect.