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Physical Review A

Laser-induced population transfer in multistate systems: A comparative study

Bruce W. Shore, Klaas Bergmann, Axel Kuhn, S. Schiemann, J. Oreg, Joseph H. Eberly

Published Apr 1, 1992• 128 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We examine similarities and differences in three schemes that are capable of producing complete population transfer in multistate systems: generalized \ensuremath{\pi} pulses, adiabatic passage by pulse chirping, and counterintuitive pulses or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. We use the picture of adiabatic following through avoided crossings of instantaneous eigenvalues to exhibit the essential differences between the latter two procedures.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.45.5297

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We examine similarities and differences in three schemes that are capable of producing complete population transfer in multistate systems: generalized \ensuremath{\pi} pulses, adiabatic passage by pulse chirping, and counterintuitive pulses or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. We use the picture of adiabatic following through avoided crossings of instantaneous eigenvalues to exhibit the essential differences between the latter two procedures.
This paper analyzes the extension of the three-state process of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage to chainwise-connected multistate systems. A necessary condition for such a process is the existence of an adiabatic-transfer state, which connects adiabatically the initial state of the chain to its final state. Various counterintuitive pulse sequences are examined, in all of which the pulse that drives the last transition of the chain precedes the pulse driving the first transition, while the pulses driving the intermediate transitions may have different timings. The paper demonstrates some important qualitative differences and similarities between the systems with odd and even number of states. In the on-resonance case, an adiabatic-transfer state always exists for an odd number of states while it never exists for an even number of states. In the off-resonance case, however, the two types of systems behave in a very similar manner and the condition for existence of an adiabatic-transfer state is essentially the same. This condition, which imposes certain limitations on the laser parameters, is derived in a simple and compact form. It is also shown analytically that, besides by large detunings, the populations of the intermediate states (which are generally nonzero during the transfer) can be damped by large intermediate couplings. It is concluded that for an odd number of states, the optimal case is the on-resonance one, with equal and large intermediate couplings. For an even number of states, the optimal (off-resonance) case is when the intermediate couplings and the detunings have similar values. Various numerical examples of success and failure of multistate population transfer confirm the analytic conclusions.
Adiabatic passage induced by chirped laser pulses in three-level $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ systems is investigated. Two different strategies for efficient population transfer (equal and opposite sign of the chirp) are analyzed. The role of detuning, crucial for the attempt to reduce the population of the intermediate state, is demonstrated. The scheme of adiabatic passage by laser pulses with chirps of different sign is not symmetric with respect to the sign of the one-photon detuning. Blue detuning results in a smaller transient population of the intermediate state than does red detuning. The results are explained on the basis of dressed states. Numerical results for a fully off-resonant adiabatic passage scheme, based on two pulses with the same sign of the chirps, are also considered. The robustness of the schemes in terms of the Rabi frequency, chirp rate, detuning, and time delay of the pulses is explored.
We study the dynamics of chirped adiabatic passage (CHIRAP) with temporally delayed pulses to selectively and fully transfer population in atoms and molecules. We show that the transfer of population via stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) and stimulated two-photon adiabatic absorption with temporally delayed laser pulses is not adversely affected by applying a chirp to the pulses, provided the intensity of the laser is sufficiently large to allow adiabatic passage. We then proceed to consider systems in which a near degeneracy of terminal state levels results in nonselective population of the terminal levels using nonchirped STIRAP or two-photon absorption stimulated passage, because the dynamics within the nearly degenerate pair of levels is not adiabatic. However, the CHIRAP process selectively populates only one of the terminal levels.
We show that the technique of Stark-chirped rapid adiabatic passage (SCRAP), hitherto used for complete population transfer between two quantum states, offers a simple and robust method for complete population transfer amongst three states in atoms and molecules. In this case SCRAP uses three laser pulses: a strong far-off-resonant pulse modifies the transition frequencies by inducing dynamic Stark shifts and thereby creating time-dependent level crossings amongst the three diabatic states, while near-resonant and moderately strong pump and Stokes pulses, appropriately offset in time, drive the population between the initial and final states via adiabatic passage. The population transfer efficiency is robust to variations in the intensities of the lasers, as long as these intensities are sufficiently large to enforce adiabatic evolution. With suitable pulse timings the population in the (possibly decaying) intermediate state can be minimized, as with stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). This technique applies to one-photon as well as multiphoton transitions and it is also applicable to media exhibiting inhomogeneous broadening; these features represent clear advantages over STIRAP by overcoming the inevitable dynamical Stark shifts that accompany multiphoton transitions as well as unwanted detunings, e.g., induced by Doppler shifts.
We present explicit analytic expressions for adiabatic dressed states which, in suitable limits, produce complete population transfer between initial and final states of a four-state excitation chain without ever placing appreciable population into intermediate states. The population-transfer scheme is a generalization of the three-state stimulated Raman adiabatic passage that makes use of counterintuitive pulse sequences. We demonstrate analytically and numerically that the four-state system differs in a very significant qualitative way from previously studied N-state systems with odd N. In particular, we find that the presence of modest detuning from single-photon resonance is critical to the success of population transfer.
We have studied the population transfer in a three-state system driven by laser beams in terms of the theory of Lewis–Riesenfeld Hermitian invariants for explicitly time-dependent Hamiltonian. The exact solutions obtained allow us to recover two existing schemes producing complete population transfer in the literature, i.e. the π-pulse and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage methods in our unified description. We present a strict formulation of adiabatic conditions and a more accurate expression of the π-pulse method according to the exact time-evolution of state vector.