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Physical Review A

Transfer of light waves in optical waveguides via a continuum

Stefano Longhi

Published Jul 10, 2008• 42 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Classical wave optical analogs of coherent population transfer via a continuum, recently demonstrated for laser-driven atoms and molecules in the atomic physics context, are theoretically proposed for light waves propagating in waveguide-based photonic structures. In particular, it is shown that exploitation of the optical analogs of two-photon Rabi oscillations and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage via continuous states enables efficient transfer of light waves between two channel optical waveguides side coupled to a slab waveguide.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.78.013815

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Classical wave optical analogs of coherent population transfer via a continuum, recently demonstrated for laser-driven atoms and molecules in the atomic physics context, are theoretically proposed for light waves propagating in waveguide-based photonic structures. In particular, it is shown that exploitation of the optical analogs of two-photon Rabi oscillations and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage via continuous states enables efficient transfer of light waves between two channel optical waveguides side coupled to a slab waveguide.
A quantum theory of light propagation in two optical channel waveguides tunneling coupled to a common continuum of modes (such as those of a slab waveguide) is presented, and classical and quantum interference effects are investigated. For classical light, the photonic system realizes an optical analog of coherent population trapping in the continuum encountered in atomic physics, where destructive interference between different light leakage channels leads to the appearance of a trapped state embedded in the continuum. For nonclassical light, two-photon interference effects are predicted, such as the tendency of photon pairs to bunch when decaying into the continuum.
An optical analogue of two-photon Rabi oscillations, occurring in a three-level atomic or molecular system coherently driven by two detuned laser fields, is theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated using three evanescently coupled optical waveguides realized on an active glass substrate. The optical analogue stems from the formal analogy between spatial propagation of light waves in the three-waveguide structure and the coherent temporal evolution of populations in a three-level atomic medium driven by two laser fields under two-photon resonance. In our optical experiment, two-photon Rabi oscillations are thus visualized as a slow spatial oscillatory exchange of light power between the two outer waveguides of the structure with a small excitation of the central waveguide.
We propose a novel transport scheme for light waves in a triple-well optical system which mimics the technique of Raman chirped adiabatic passage (RCAP) for population transfer in three-level atomic or molecular systems driven by linearly chirped laser pulses. The optical analogue of atomic RCAP is realized using three tunnelling-coupled and cubically bent optical waveguides, and enables an almost complete light transfer between the outer waveguides with negligible excitation of the middle waveguide.
Abstract Engineered photonic waveguides have provided in the past decade an extremely rich laboratory tool to visualize with optical waves the classic analogues of a wide variety of coherent quantum phenomena encountered in atomic, molecular or condensed‐matter physics. As compared to quantum systems, optics offers the rather unique advantage of a direct mapping of the wave function evolution in coordinate space by simple fluorescence imaging or scanning tunneling optical microscopy techniques. In this contribution recent theoretical and experimental advances in the field of quantum‐optical analogies are reviewed. Special attention is devoted to some relevant optical analogies based on the use of curved photonic structures, including: coherent destruction of tunneling in driven bistable potentials; coherent population transfer and adiabatic passage in laser‐driven multilevel atomic systems; quantum decay control and Zeno dynamics; electronic Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling, Anderson localization and dynamic localization in crystalline potentials.