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Journal of the Optical Society of America

Angular momentum dependence of laser-induced birefringence and dichroism in atomic resonance lines

S. Saikan

Published Sep 1, 1978• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The third-order nonlinear susceptibility responsible for laser-induced birefringence and dichroism is calculated for atomic resonance lines with arbitrary values of total angular momentum J. Several types of polarization spectroscopy are interpreted in terms of this nonlinear susceptibility.
DOI
10.1364/josa.68.001184

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Birefringence and dichroism in atomic systems are active areas of research. Circular dichroism is typically observed in chiral atoms, molecules (such as DNA), and optically asymmetric materials. These phenomena enable polarization-based selectivity and high-precision measurements with applications in optical systems, biomedical diagnostics, and advanced photonics. Meanwhile, negative-refractive-index materials offer exotic applications in optics and photonics, including superresolution imaging, invisibility cloaking, and subwavelength imaging. Here we identify a route to achieving birefringence and dichroism in a left-handed system. We investigate the optical activity of an atomic left-handed medium, analyzing the interaction of left- and right-circularly polarized light with different atomic states while incorporating local field corrections. Notably, our results demonstrate simultaneous left-handedness for both polarization states. Furthermore, we find that electric birefringence and dichroism are significantly enhanced with increasing control field strength, while magnetic birefringence and dichroism can be fully controlled via strong laser coupling. These findings have promising implications in fields at the interface of left-handedness and dichroism.
We have observed the Doppler-free dichroism and birefringence induced by a linearly polarized laser beam (pump beam) by monitoring the polarization and amplitude changes of a weak probe beam through an analyzer. The effects have been observed in two-level systems and also in three-level systems of Ne I. At rather low pump power, a typical refractive-index anisotropy of 10−8 has been measured. We have shown that, when the normal resonance curve exhibits a broad background due to collisions, our method allows the elimination of this background. In addition, using a rotating analyzer, we have obtained simultaneously the dichroism and birefringence curves, i.e., the imaginary and real part of the anisotropic-induced susceptibility.
The formalism of Maker, Terhune, and Savage [Phys. Rev. Lett. 12, 507 (1964)] for third-order nonlinear susceptibilities is extended to account for nonlocal response. In the case of counterpropagating beams, we show that five constants instead of two are required in general to describe the nonlinearity. In the particular case of optical pumping nonlinearities, which we study extensively, we show that four constants, which describe the magnetization and electric-quadrupole moment of the medium induced by the forward and backward beams, are sufficient. We evaluate these constants for various values of the angular momenta of the atomic levels connected by the incident field. We finally show how this formalism can be applied to several problems such as induced focusing, four-wave-mixing generation, optical instability, and polarization properties of phase-conjugate and phase-contrast mirrors.
The resonant self-induced optical activity (SIOA) in an atomic alkaline metal vapors has been investigated for the first time. Data on optical polarization rotation are presented and interpreted in terms of the resonance behavior of the third order susceptibility and finite elliptical polarization of real lasers. The limiting action of SIOA on the efficiency of resonance parametric generators and polarization spectroscopy is outlined. The observation of a nonlinear resonant self- induced of the laser beam polarization rotation in ruby crystal (Al2O3:Cr3+) at the laser transition are reported.