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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Influence of field-dependent relaxation on amplification without inversion

Yevgeny V. Radeonychev, Paul Mandel, Olga A. Kocharovskaya

Published May 10, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study a three-level atomic system strongly driven by a monochromatic field resonant to one of atomic transitions. The second highest frequency transition is probed by a weak field. In such a system we predict a novel mechanism of probe field amplification without inversion via strong field induced spontaneous relaxation of the ground atomic state. Unlike the AWI in the (Lambda) -scheme this mechanism appears in case of sufficiently fast relaxation at the low frequency transition.

DOI
10.1117/12.239480

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We study a three-level atomic system strongly driven by a monochromatic field resonant to one of atomic transitions. The second highest frequency transition is probed by a weak field. In such a system we predict a novel mechanism of probe field amplification without inversion via strong field induced spontaneous relaxation of the ground atomic state. Unlike the AWI in the (Lambda) -scheme this mechanism appears in case of sufficiently fast relaxation at the low frequency transition.
We consider the problem of amplification without inversion in a three-level atomic system. When atoms are driven by a field reservoir and a low-frequency coherent field, amplification of a high-frequency probe field may occur even when there is no population inversion on any atomic transition. We prove that, depending on the ratio of the probe and coherent drive field frequencies, which we term the frequency up-conversion factor, this process may or may not require hidden inversion in the field reservoir. In the special case of a frequency up-conversion factor less than 2, we demonstrate that amplification is possible even if the field reservoir is in complete thermal equilibrium: this represents a new kind of coherent radiation source, distinct from both conventional lasers and lasers without inversion.
We study the propagation of a bichromatic field in three-level and four-level media. In the case of a three-level medium, we consider the \ensuremath{\Lambda} configuration and demonstrate that if the upper level is not empty there is a critical value for the low-frequency coherence such that below this threshold and for intense fields, coherent bleaching occurs. This implies a sharp reduction of the field absorption and the fluorescence emission whereas above this threshold a parametric instability takes place. It corresponds to an amplification of the field that does not need a population inversion between the optical transitions. Finally we prove that the field alone cannot create a low-frequency coherence exceeding this threshold. Therefore we analyze the double-\ensuremath{\Lambda} configuration involving a four-level medium in which the upper and lower pairs of atomic levels have a low-frequency separation while optical transitions take place between the two pairs of states. An intense bichromatic field that is resonant with one upper state and the lower levels and a weak bichromatic field resonant with the other upper state and the same two lower states are sent into the medium. We analyze the limit in which the low-frequency coherence created between the lower pair of states has a relaxation time which is large. Then there will be population trapping in the lower states leading to coherent bleaching if there is no inversion between the upper levels but there will be amplification if there is inversion between the upper levels. In this way amplification at the optical transitions without population inversion between these states is realized.
We study a three-level atomic system of the vee type, but driven on only one transition by a monochromatic laser. It is shown that the gain of a probe beam, recently predicted for this system by Menon and Agarwal (Menon S and Agarwal G 2000 Phys. Rev. A 61 13 807), is due to an unexpected amplification on a completely inverted, nondecaying (dark) transition. This prediction violates the well known balance condition between the population inversion and the coupling strength of the probe field to the inverted transition, which requires that the coupling strength reduces with increasing population inversion. We show that the condition may be violated only if the probe field selectively couples to just one of the atomic transitions: when it couples to both transitions, the balance condition is satisfied and the system is transparent for the probe field coupled to the dark transitions. No amplification is possible in the latter case.
The effects of incoherent pumping on the phase control of amplification without inversion (AWI) are investigated in a three-level Λ system with a weak probe field. It is shown that, similar to spontaneously generated coherence, incoherent pumping is necessary to make the system become sensitive to the relative phase. We find that the region in which AWI can be exhibited is widened with the enhancement of incoherent pumping, and that the amplitude of the probe gain can be also changed where there exists an extremum of the amplitude for a given probe detuning.
We report the observation of optical amplification in a two-level atomic system driven by a strong, resonant field. By exciting an atomic beam of two-level sodium atoms simultaneously with a strong, fixed-frequency driving field and a weak, tunable, probe field, we have measured the absorption (amplification) line-shape function for several values of driving field strength. In addition, we have verified theoretical predictions that higher amplification is obtained when the strong field is detuned from exact resonance.