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Physical Review Letters

Observation of dressed-atom effects in three-level free-induction decay

Howard W. H. Lee, John E. Wessel

Published Sep 28, 1987• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

New coherent transient optical effects are reported for resonantly excited three-level cesium atoms. Complex modulation of free-induction decay was observed and is attributed to dressed-atom effects. Contrary to prior expectations, coherent transients monitored for upper and lower transitions were remarkably dissimilar and provide clear evidence for coherence transfer between the upper and lower optical transitions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.59.1416

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New coherent transient optical effects are reported for resonantly excited three-level cesium atoms. Complex modulation of free-induction decay was observed and is attributed to dressed-atom effects. Contrary to prior expectations, coherent transients monitored for upper and lower transitions were remarkably dissimilar and provide clear evidence for coherence transfer between the upper and lower optical transitions.
We report theoretical and experimental studies of the propagation of a square-modulated laser pulse through a laser-cooled atomic ensemble of two-level absorbers, as well as through a three-level system with electromagnetically induced transparency. We find that the transmission characteristics over a wide range of optical depth can be fully accounted for as optical coherent transients excited by the wide spectral content of the square-modulated optical pulse. We show that both time-domain atom-field coupled equations and frequency-domain linear dispersion theory give precisely the same description of the optical transients at a weak power limit. At low optical depth with moderate absorption, resonant excitation dominates and free-induction decay (FID) contributes mostly to the transient field. At high optical depth when absorption and propagation effects become significant, lossless optical precursors start to dominate the transient response. By varying the optical depth from 0 to 45, we observe that optical transients evolve gradually from FID to optical precursors. We thus show that FID and optical precursors, which have been considered as two different optical transients for many decades, can be unified within a single theoretical frame and they are the manifestations of the same physical process in two different regimes.
Coherent transient spectroscopy is well understood for two-level systems. The effect was demonstrated for a three-level atom a number of years ago.1 However, detailed studies have only recently been initiated. Mossberg’s group2 recently completed studies of three-level coherent transient spectroscopy of ytterbium, which is not subject to complications associated with optical pumping of hyperfine levels. They employed the photon echo technique using an atomic beam to suppress Doppler broadening. Results were complex and required a new dressed atom model of coherent excitation processes.
We experimentally investigate the transient dynamics of two-level atoms driven by a bichromatic optical excitation field when the bichromatic field is configured to contain a strong resonant component and a weaker nonresonant perturber component. We concentrate on the experimental situation in which the two-level atoms are prepared in an eigenstate (dressed state) of the coupled atom-resonant field system prior to exposure to the perturber field. We experimentally demonstrate perturber-field-induced, optical nutation of the dressed-state populations. We show how nutation of the dressed-state populations manifests itself in the fluorescence signal of the transiently driven atoms. We observe that the detuning of the perturber field from transitions between the dressed states of the atom-resonant field system plays the same role in determining the character of the dressed-state optical nutation as the atom-field detuning in the case of the ordinary optical nutation of atomic populations. Our experiments demonstrate the utility of the dressed-atom picture in understanding the complex dynamics of bichromatically driven atoms in a variety of circumstances.
We report the observation of coherent two-photon free-induction decay (FID) in a three-level Lambda system excited by a low-intensity square-modulated laser pulse. Using electromagnetically induced transparency in an Rb85 cold atomic cloud, for what we believe to be the first time, we observe FID signals with coherence time exceeding the relevant atomic excited-state natural lifetime. Because of the on-resonance enhancement, the two-photon FID signal can be observed at the falling edge without using heterodyne means.
We show that continuous-wave, two colour excitation of three-level atoms opens new channels of irreversible population transfer between atomic levels. This process, which we describe as dynamically induced irreversibility, leads to unanticipated phenomena including the inversion of atomic transitions whose upper atomic level has no conventional source of irreversible population pumping. We also study the effect of excitation-field bandwidth on the gain exhibited by driven, three-level, V-type atomic systems. Gain, which may or may not be inversionless in the atomic-state basis, is produced through strong monochromatic driving of one atomic transition and weaker pumping of a coupled transition. It is found that monochromatic pumping frequently yields greater optical gain than incoherent (wide bandwidth) pumping. This is particularly true when system gain can be attributed to hidden inversions among the eigenstates (semi-classical dressed states) of the coupled atom+driving field quantum system. Last, we report the observation of continuous-wave lasing in a strongly driven barium cascade system and interpret its properties in terms of the models presented.