Electromagnetically Induced Transparency and Slow Light
Spotts, Kevin
Abstract
This thesis describes an experimental observation of electromagnetically induced transparency and ultra-slow light, as well as a description of the theories that describe them. We report electromagnetically induced transparency resonances with ultra-slow group velocities of light of order 400 m/s. We exploited the D1 line of warmed 87Rb vapor with 5 torr of helium buffer gas by establishing a Λ-configuration that employed the triply degenerate magnetic sublevels of the 5S1/2 (F=1) and 5P1/2 (F’=1) hyperfine states. In doing so, we were able to derive our signal and control fields from one laser.