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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Coherent backscattering of light by resonant atomic dipole transitions

David Wilkowski, Yannick Bidel, T. Chanelière, Dominique Delande, Thibaut Jonckheere, Bruce G. Klappauf, G. Labeyrie, Christian Miniatura, Cord Axel Müller, Olivier Sigwarth, Robin Kaiser

Published Jan 1, 2004• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study coherent backscattering (CBS) of resonant light by cold atomic vapors, both experimentally and theoretically. The theory predicts a drastic reduction of the CBS enhancement factor when a degenerate internal structure is present in the ground state. We test this prediction in experiments using different atoms and various transitions.

DOI
10.1364/josab.21.000183

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We study coherent backscattering (CBS) of resonant light by cold atomic vapors, both experimentally and theoretically. The theory predicts a drastic reduction of the CBS enhancement factor when a degenerate internal structure is present in the ground state. We test this prediction in experiments using different atoms and various transitions.
When a quasiresonant laser beam illuminates an optically thick cloud of laser-cooled rubidium atoms, the average diffuse intensity reflected off the sample is enhanced in a narrow angular range around the direction of exact backscattering. This phenomenon is known as coherent backscattering (CBS). By detuning the laser from resonance, we are able to modify the light scattering mean-free path inside the sample and we record accordingly the variations of the CBS cone shape. We then compare the experimental data with theoretical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations including the effect of the light polarization and of the internal structure of the atoms. We confirm that the internal structure strongly affects the enhancement factor of the cone and we show that the unusual shape of the atomic medium---approximately a spherically-symmetric, Gaussian density profile---strongly affects the width and shape of the cone.
Summary form only given. A wave propagating in a strongly scattering medium experiences many scattering events which rapidly erase the memory of its initial direction on a typical scale length known as the transport mean free path. It is now known that interference can profoundly alter the wave transport, a spectacular manifestation being weak and strong localisation of waves. We shall briefly review the basics of coherent backscattering (CBS) and the results obtained with classical scatterers. We shall then describe our experiment using cold atoms and discuss the experimental data. The non trivial role of the atomic quantum internal structure in the enhancement reduction will be singled out in a simple situation and results of analytical calculations will be presented.
The interference contrast observed in coherent backscattering by cold atoms is drastically reduced with respect to classical disordered media. We study the impact of the degeneracy of the resonant atomic dipole transition on multiple scattering of polarised photons. An analytical treatment allows to derive the diffusion coefficient and depolarisation times for the average light intensity, and dephasing times for the weak localisation corrections. The calculated CBS signals reproduce the experimental results.
Since the work of Anderson on localization, interference effects for the propagation of a wave in the presence of disorder have been extensively studied, as exemplified in coherent backscattering (CBS) of light. In the multiple scattering of light by a disordered sample of thermal atoms, interference effects are usually washed out by the fast atomic motion. This is no longer true for cold atoms where CBS has recently been observed. However, the internal structure of the atoms strongly influences the interference properties. In this paper, we consider light scattering by an atomic dipole transition with arbitrary degeneracy and study its impact on coherent backscattering. We show that the interference contrast is strongly reduced. Assuming a uniform statistical distribution over internal degrees of freedom, we compute analytically the single- and double-scattering contributions to the intensity in the weak-localization regime. The so-called ladder and crossed diagrams are generalized to the case of atoms and permit to calculate enhancement factors and backscattering intensity profiles for polarized light and any closed atomic dipole transition.