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Physical Review A

Dual control of slow light in reciprocal electromagnetically-induced-transparency conditions

D. Dziczek, Stanisław Chwirot

Published Apr 6, 2009• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of atomic medium interacting with two laser beams can exhibit effects of reciprocal influence of both beams on optical properties of the medium. If the probe beam reaches instantaneous intensity comparable to that of the control beam, considerable energy is transferred to the latter. Resulting increase in the control-beam intensity temporarily modifies EIT conditions and consequently affects propagation of probe-beam pulses. The effect is particularly strong in atomic media exhibiting significant dissipation of radiation energy due to relaxation processes efficiently counteracting the optical pumping. Coherent interaction of atoms with both beams causes reduction of dissipation of the control beam (reciprocal EIT conditions). Our experiments with hot rubidium vapor demonstrate the possibility of dual control over slow propagation of light pulses in such media. Besides the well-known dependence on input control-beam intensity, the delays of output probe pulses depended significantly also on the energy of input probe pulses. Moreover, for relatively short input pulses, very specific shape of output pulses was observed, invariant in wide ranges of input probe pulse energies and control-beam intensities. The shapes of the output pulses were also the same for short input pulses of different shapes as well as for pulses temporarily stored in the medium by switching off the control beam during their propagation.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.043807

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Electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of atomic medium interacting with two laser beams can exhibit effects of reciprocal influence of both beams on optical properties of the medium. If the probe beam reaches instantaneous intensity comparable to that of the control beam, considerable energy is transferred to the latter. Resulting increase in the control-beam intensity temporarily modifies EIT conditions and consequently affects propagation of probe-beam pulses. The effect is particularly strong in atomic media exhibiting significant dissipation of radiation energy due to relaxation processes efficiently counteracting the optical pumping. Coherent interaction of atoms with both beams causes reduction of dissipation of the control beam (reciprocal EIT conditions). Our experiments with hot rubidium vapor demonstrate the possibility of dual control over slow propagation of light pulses in such media. Besides the well-known dependence on input control-beam intensity, the delays of output probe pulses depended significantly also on the energy of input probe pulses. Moreover, for relatively short input pulses, very specific shape of output pulses was observed, invariant in wide ranges of input probe pulse energies and control-beam intensities. The shapes of the output pulses were also the same for short input pulses of different shapes as well as for pulses temporarily stored in the medium by switching off the control beam during their propagation.
Abstract For multi-level systems in hot atomic vapors the interplay between the Doppler shift due to atomic motion and the wavenumber mismatch between driving laser fields strongly influences transmission and absorption properties of the atomic medium. In a three-level atomic ladder-system, Doppler broadening limits the visibility of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) when the probe and control fields are co-propagating, while EIT is recovered under the opposite condition of counter-propagating geometry and k p < k c , with k p and k c being the wavenumbers of the probe and control fields, respectively. This effect has been studied and experimentally demonstrated as an efficient mechanism to realize non-reciprocal probe light transmission, which may enable applications as magnetic-field free optical isolators. Here, we describe the basics of this effect and discuss a simple picture for the underlying mechanism. We illustrate how the non-reciprocity scales with wavelength mismatch and show how to experimentally demonstrate the effect in a simple Rydberg-EIT system using thermal Rubidium atoms.
Experiments on hot rubidium vapor as an atomic medium with electromagnetically induced transparency for radiation of 795 nm wavelength (D1 absorption line of rubidium) are reported.Propagation of light pulses with velocity reduced to 11.5 km/s has been observed with a significant modification of the shape of square input pulses to adapt to the spectral window of induced transparency.So-called light storage, i.e. suspension of the propagation of light pulses in the medium by temporary turn-off of the electromagnetically induced transparency state was also demonstrated."Storage" periods of several microseconds, limited by relatively fast relaxation of atomic spin polarization in the volume of interaction of atoms with radiation, were obtained.
This thesis deals with the study of propagation effects experienced by weak light pulses as they propagate in atomic media driven by strong pulses. We explore both the ultra-short and long pulse regime and investigate the phenomena that arise at these different time scales. In the short pulse regime, a strongly driven two level atomic system presents transient light shifts, and non-adiabatic transitions occur between these adiabatic levels. We have studied a method to probe these light shifts in real time by propagating a weak probe through the medium. The light shifts enrich the spectrum of the probe and the probe gets shaped as a result. In this way a strongly driven two-level system can act as an active pulse shaper, and can introduce oscillations in the temporal profile of an ultra-short pulse at a time scale shorter than the pulse duration. We also show that by driving the system with two time delayed non-resonant strong fields, the non-adiabatic effects can be rendered phase dependent. This gives very sensitive phase control of the excited state population and can be used to formulate new techniques in interferometry. In the long pulse regime we present a new method of slowing light that can be realized in a double two-level system interacting with two orthogonally polarized light pulses that propagate along different axis. Spatio-temporal dependence of the total polarization induces a grating in the ground Zeeman coherence. The stronger of the two fields (the control field) is diffracted from this grating into the direction of the weak probe field compensating for the absorption of this latter field. A transparency window is thus created in the absorption spectrum of the probe leading to the slowing down of light. The transparency window exhibits characteristics similar to the one obtained by EIT (electromagnetic induced transparency) method. However, the important difference between our method and the traditional EIT method, is that ours doesn't rely on realizing dark state in the system. This may open the possibility of slowing down light in more complex atomic media. Moreover, when the linear absorptive response of the medium is cancelled in this manner, the nonlinear response becomes more important. In the situation where fields propagate in the same direction and have same frequency, two regimes have been investigated. For small optical depths, the effective susceptibility behaves as chi_lin exp[2 i phi] (with phi the phase difference between two fields). This renders phase control of the medium response, and the medium can be changed from an absorber to an amplifier, with normal or anomalous dispersion, by adjusting the relative phase phi.  In the regime of large optical thickness, phase saturation takes place and the effective susceptibility turns into chi_lin*, changing an absorber into an amplifier without effecting the dispersive response (chi_lin is linear susceptibility).
We study the propagation dynamics of a single pair of probe and coupling laser pulses in a three-level cascade atomic medium by numerical solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations for atoms and fields. Influences of the pulse durations, intensity and pulse area of the coupling laser on the probe laser propagation are investigated. We found the conditions that the undistorted probe pulse in such medium, i.e., the EIT effect is established. Under EIT conditions, the ground state population is trapped in a dark state. Full Text: PDF References A. Imamoglu, S.E. Harris, "Lasers without inversion: interference of dressed lifetime-broadened states", Opt. Lett. 14 (1989) 1344. CrossRef K.J. Boller, A. Imamoglu, S.E. Harris, "Observation of electromagnetically induced transparency", Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 (1991) 2593. CrossRef A.S. Zibrov, M.D. Lukin, D.E. Nikonov, L. Hollberg, M.O. Scully, V.L. Velichansky, and H.G. Robinson, "Experimental Demonstration of Laser Oscillation without Population Inversion via Quantum Interference in Rb", Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 (1995) 1499. CrossRef L.V. Hau, S. E. Harris, Z. Dutton, C.H. Bejroozi, "Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold atomic gas", Nature, 397 (1999) 594. CrossRef L.V. Doai, D.X. Khoa, and N.H. Bang, "EIT enhanced self-Kerr nonlinearity in the three-level lambda system under Doppler broadening", Phys. Scr. 90 (2015)045502. CrossRef D.X. Khoa, L.V. Doai, D.H. Son, and N.H. Bang, "Enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity via electromagnetically induced transparency in a five-level cascade system: an analytical approach", J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 31, N6 (2014), pp. 1330. CrossRef F.T. Hioe and R. Grobe, "Matched Optical Solitary Waves for Three- and Five-Level Systems", Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, (1994) 2559. CrossRef S.E. Harris and Z.F. Luo, "Preparation energy for electromagnetically induced transparency", Phys. Rev. A. 52 (1995) R928. CrossRef V. G. Arkhipkin, I.V. Timofeev, "Adiabatic propagation of short pulses under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency", Quantum Electronics, 30 (2000) 180. CrossRef M. Kiffner, T. N. Dey, "Dynamical control of pulse propagation in electromagnetically induced transparency", Phys. Rev. A. 79 (2009) 023829. CrossRef R. Yu, J. Li, P. Huang, A. Zheng, X. Yang, "Dynamic control of light propagation and optical switching through an RF-driven cascade-type atomic medium", Phys. Lett. A. 373 (2009) 2992. CrossRef E. Paspalakis,N. J. Kylstra and P. L. Knight, "Propagation and nonlinear generation dynamics in a coherently prepared four-level system", Phys. Rev. A 65 (2002) 053808. CrossRef E. Ignesti, R. Buffa, L. Fini, E. Sali, M. V. Tognetti, S. Cavalieri, "Controlling the propagation of broadband light pulses by Electromagnetically Induced Transparency", Opt. Commun, 285 (2012) 1185. CrossRef P. R. Bermanand C. H. Raymond Ooi, "Pulse propagation in a medium of ?-type atoms", Phys. Rev. A 86 (2012), 053812. CrossRef G. Buica, T. Nakajima, "Propagation of two short laser pulse trains in a ?-type three-level medium under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency", Opt. Commun. 332 (2014) 59. CrossRef L. V. Doai, P. V. Trong, D. X. Khoa, and Ng. H. Bang, "Electromagnetically induced transparency in five-level cascade scheme of 85Rb atoms: An analytical approach", Optik, 125 (2014) 3666?3669. CrossRef J.H. Eberly, "Transmission of dressed fields in three-level media", Quantum Semiclass. Opt. 7 (1995) 373. CrossRef M.D. Crisp, "Propagation of Small-Area Pulses of Coherent Light through a Resonant Medium", Phys. Rev. A 1 (1970) 1604. CrossRef
This thesis investigates the result of modulation schemes in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in rubidium vapor. Through the process of EIT, a control beam can be used to change the optical properties of a medium experienced by a probe field, generating a transparency window. The corresponding change in index of refraction results in slowed group velocity while the beam propagates through the medium. Modulation is used to transmit a message signal through a medium. In classical systems, this entails converting data into a radio frequency by adding a message to an electronic or optical carrier signal. The properties of EIT, light-slowing, and their impacts on a probe pulse with modulation will be confirmed through a detailed semi-classical analysis and by experimental observation.
We investigate the weak probe pulse propagation through the atomic medium, in the presence of the strong control laser field, under the regime of the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). These fields couple to the medium by forming the 3-level ladder configuration. We focus on two distinct cases: closed system, which is a non-degenerate, and open system, where the middle level is 3-fold degenerate, and the additional levels are coupled to the other levels only via spontaneous emission. The spatio-temporal profile of the probe pulse envelope is obtained by using the formalism of Maxwell-Bloch equations with the help of the Fourier transform method. We study the influence of the control field Rabi frequency, the spectral half-width of the initial pulse and decay rates on the propagation of the probe pulse. Several important pulse parameters are also calculated and discussed. It is shown that the group velocity of light can be controlled in such a manner that one can switch from slow to fast light and vice versa when changing the control Rabi frequency and spectral pulse half-width. Moreover, the possibility of replacing the open with an effective closed system is also discussed.