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Universal Journal of Physics and Application

Optical Saturation of Strong Selective Reflection

Yakov A. Fofanov

Published Dec 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Nonlinear selective reflection of obliquely incident laser beam (inclined geometry) has been investigated. The new structures were detected on the tops of strong reflection resonances under conditions of optical saturation of the D2-lines in the natural mixture of rubidium isotopes. The detected nonlinear structures have not saturation properties in usual sense and exist only in the close area of saturating power density values. This phenomenon can be useful for the amplification the nonlinear characteristics of the optical interface in order to reduce the fluctuations of selective reflected light.

DOI
10.13189/ujpa.2013.010402

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Nonlinear selective reflection of obliquely incident laser beam (inclined geometry) has been investigated. The new structures were detected on the tops of strong reflection resonances under conditions of optical saturation of the D2-lines in the natural mixture of rubidium isotopes. The detected nonlinear structures have not saturation properties in usual sense and exist only in the close area of saturating power density values. This phenomenon can be useful for the amplification the nonlinear characteristics of the optical interface in order to reduce the fluctuations of selective reflected light.
This work is devoted to study of the strong selective reflection of obliquely incident laser beam (inclined geometry) from the interface "glass-rubidium vapour". It is shown that the contrast of the strongest refection resonances exceeds 500% at the moderate heating of reflecting cells. The new nonlinear properties of selective reflection resonances have been investigated - asymmetry of saturation of resonant total internal reflection (TIR) and nonlinear structures that appear under conditions close to resonant TIR. The observed structures can not be associated with well-known sub-Doppler resonances in selective reflection. The nonlinear structures described here do not have saturation properties in usual sense. They exist only in the inclined geometry and in a narrow range of saturating values of the surface power density at the interface. The transformation of the fluctuations of reflected light was also investigated at the optical saturation of selective reflection resonances. For this purpose the intensity of incident light was slightly modulated. The reduction of the corresponding intensity modulation was registered in the reflected light. This reduction of the intensity fluctuations ("classical squeezing") and the relatively high selective reflection coefficient offer good possibilities for the squeezing of quantum fluctuations in the reflected light. In the process of appropriate studies it was found that the reduction (squeezing) of photons (quantum) fluctuations in the reflected light beam is about of 5% in compare with the coherent light.
Nonlinear selective reflection from the interface YAG window-high density rubidium vapor in the high-temperature cell is studied at the transition 5S1/2_{1/2}1/2​-5P3/2_{3/2}3/2​. In the experiment tunable pump and probe lasers are used. The selective reflection spectra for the laser probe beam are investigated at four different rubidium atomic densities and five different pump beam intensities. The estimated dipole-dipole interaction-induced line broadening varies from 13.213.213.2 to 39.639.639.6 GHz, the measured pumped intensities change from 1.21.21.2 to 8.88.88.8 kW⋅\cdot⋅cm−2^{-2}−2. Growth of the pump intensity causes reduction of the magnitude and the width of the recorded selective reflection resonance. We suggest developing all-optical modulators on the basis of nonlinear selective reflection.
A series of reflection resonances formed by the hyperfine components of the D 2 -lines in the spectrum of the natural mixture of rubidium isotopes is studied. Passages from resonantly frustrated total internal reflection to resonance Brewster reflection caused by the frequency tuning of the incident light are demonstrated experimentally. The contrast of the strongest refection resonances exceeds 500% at the moderate heating of reflecting cells. The intensity of the reflected light changes in this case by more than 20 times. A theory is developed which is based on a two-level model for resonance atoms and Fresnel formulas for reflection coefficients. Numerical calculations based on the proposed theory confirm main experimental results.
The transformation of intensity fluctuations accompanying the nonlinear resonance reflection of light from a glass-resonant gas interface is discussed. The illumination of the interface at angles close to the critical angle for total internal reflection is found to have certain advantages over orthogonal incidence. At the maximum of the strongest resonance, the reflected light intensity amounts to more than 50% of the incident light. In these conditions, a squeezing of the amplitude (photon) fluctuations is observed in the radiation generated by a semiconductor laser-nonlinear selective reflector system. A simple semiclassical theory adequately describes some important characteristics of this system: the shape of the reflection resonances, the strength of the saturation fields, and so on.
The dipole–dipole broadening of the spectrum of the selective reflection of intense resonance light from the interface between a transparent dielectric and a gas of the natural mixture of Rb isotopes has been studied experimentally. The case of a high gas density where the Doppler broadening can be neglected has been investigated. It has been shown that dipole–dipole broadening is reduced with increasing the number density of excited atoms. When the laser beam intensity is much higher than the saturation intensity of a resonance transition, a significant broadening due to the very high laser beam intensity has not been observed in the reflection spectrum from the transparent dielectric/gas interface. The observed intensity dependence of the spectral width has been explained by the quenching collisions of the excited atoms with the interface.
We have investigated the nonlinear selective reflection of a laser beam (λ = 780 nm) from a high density rubidium vapor. The laser frequency was tuned over atomic transitions and coherent optical excitation of the atomic vapor was realized. The observed narrowing of reflection spectral profile is associated with a competition of two nonlinear processes: optical field induced coherent broadening (Rabi broadening) and optical saturation induced decreasing of dipole–dipole broadening of atomic transitions. For more complete understanding the spectral narrowing we suggest to perform a set of new experiments.