Optics and Spectroscopy
Electromagnetically induced transparency in Λ-system involving D 2 line of Rb atoms confined in sub-micron columns
Armen D. Sargsyan, David G. Sarkisyan
Abstract
The effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a Λ-system formed by rubidium atoms contained in thin (10–60 μm) and extremely thin (0.3–5 μm) cells was studied experimentally. It was found that parameters of the EIT resonance degrade slowly in the case where the frequency of the coupling laser is in resonance with the D 2 transition of rubidium, which enabled the registration of the EIT resonance in a record thin cell with a thickness of L = 390 nm. The specific features of EIT in extremely thin cells reveal themselves when the coupling laser has a frequency detuning Δ from the atomic transition. In this case, the width of the EIT resonance rapidly increases upon an increase in Δ at fixed L (an opposite effect takes place in centimeter-scale cells). It is shown that the width of the EIT resonance is inversely proportional to L in the case of fixed large detuning Δ. The nearly tenfold broadening of the EIT resonance for large values of detuning Δ is caused by the influence of atomic collisions with cell windows on dephasing rate of coherence. The expressions that allow the estimation of the EIT-resonance width for various values of detuning Δ and small values of thickness L are found.