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Physical Review Letters

Low-Light-Level Cross-Phase Modulation with Double Slow Light Pulses

Bor-Wen Shiau, Meng-Chang Wu, Chi-Ching Lin, Ying-Cheng Chen

Published May 11, 2011• 91 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on the first experimental demonstration of low-light-level cross-phase modulation (XPM) with double slow light pulses based on the double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in cold cesium atoms. The double EIT is implemented with two control fields and two weak fields that drive populations prepared in the two doubly spin-polarized states. Group velocity matching can be obtained by tuning the intensity of either of the control fields. The XPM is based on the asymmetric M-type five-level system formed by the two sets of EIT. Enhancement in the XPM by group velocity matching is observed. Our work advances studies of low-light-level nonlinear optics based on double slow light pulses.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.106.193006

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We report on the first experimental demonstration of low-light-level cross-phase modulation (XPM) with double slow light pulses based on the double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in cold cesium atoms. The double EIT is implemented with two control fields and two weak fields that drive populations prepared in the two doubly spin-polarized states. Group velocity matching can be obtained by tuning the intensity of either of the control fields. The XPM is based on the asymmetric M-type five-level system formed by the two sets of EIT. Enhancement in the XPM by group velocity matching is observed. Our work advances studies of low-light-level nonlinear optics based on double slow light pulses.
We report on the direct measurement of low-light-level cross-phase modulation (XPM) based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in the pulsed regime. A phase shift of 0.02 rad of a probe pulse modulated by a signal pulse with a peak intensity of 3 $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ was observed, which is the lowest intensity ever achieved for the N-type EIT-based XPM system. The experimental data make a quantitative prediction of the single-photon-level XPM phase shift arising from two interacting pulses with unequal group velocities that is consistent with the theoretical predictions proposed by Harris and Hau [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999)]. Furthermore, a proof-of-principle experiment demonstrating an enhancement of the nonlinear optical Kerr effect by shining the signal pulse twice is presented.
Strong optical cross-phase modulation (XPM) for weak fields is tremendously important for optical quantum information (QI) processing and for all-optical switches in classical communication. A sufficiently large XPM would allow the design of deterministic controlled quantum gates for photonic qubits and thus enable universal optical quantum computation. Recently, several proposals have been brought forward to create large XPM using double electromagnetically induced transparency (DEIT) in which two weak signal light pulses travel at equally slow group velocity, but creating DEIT still poses an experimental challenge. We give a brief overview about DEIT and discuss its applications and limitations. A scheme that combines the best features of previous proposals and optimizes the large XPM parameter for DEIT schemes is outlined. Finally we devise a scheme to perform universal quantum information processing, which respects the bound on the achievable nonlinearity and addresses the requirement of quantum error correction.
We experimentally demonstrate an all-optical switching (AOS) scheme based on double slow light (DSL) pulses, in which one pulse is switched by another due to the cross-Kerr nonlinearity. The interaction time is prolonged by optically dense atomic media and matched group velocities. The interaction strength is maintained at a high level by keeping both fields at their electromagnetically-induced-transparency resonances to minimize the linear loss. In the AOS without the DSL scheme, the group velocity mismatch sets an upper limit on the switching efficiency of two photons per atomic cross section as discussed by Harris and Hau [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999)]. Compared to that limit, we have obtained an enhanced switching efficiency by a factor of 3 with our DSL scheme. The nonlinear efficiency can be further improved by increasing the optical depth of the medium. Our work advances low-light-level nonlinear optics and provides essential ingredients for quantum many-body physics using strongly interacting photons.
We propose a scheme to generate triple electromagnetically induced transparency (TEIT) where EIT is induced simultaneously for three weak slow light pulses.We calculate the complex polarizibilities and group velocities of the three slow light pulses in the weak field limit by means of the full Hamiltonian approach.It is shown that strong cross-phase modulation can be realized and large cross-phase shifts on the order of π radians can be generated for three slow weak pulses even if light pulses of ultrasmall energies, i.e. single photons, are involved.It is indicated that under certain conditions the three slow weak pulses can reach matching of group velocities in a single species of 87 Rb atoms.
We have studied nonlinear quantum optical effects in a doubly driven four-level atomic system in a homogeneously broadened regime. On application of two strong fields the system can be made to display double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) because of constructive quantum interference giving rise to nonlinear absorption at three-photon resonance condition. This fact may be used to obtain other phenomena like the effect of photon switching in a pulsed regime and large cross phase modulation (XPM) effect. We also show that the behaviour of spatial modulation of transparency of the weak probe beam in a three-level system interacted with a strong standing wave pump field can be dramatically changed in our four-level ladder type system. Here, strong coupling field acting on the uppermost transition is represented by a standing wave whereas strong pump and weak probe fields acting successively on the lower transitions are represented by travelling waves. The effect of double EIT on nonlinear light generation based on the four-wave-mixing (FWM) technique is also investigated. We have examined that the four wave mixing efficiency can be effectively controlled by varying the strength of the pump field.