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IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting (LEOS)

Optical amplification by dynamical gratings

Gian Luca Lippi, Sylvain Barbay, G. P. Barozzi, Jorge R. Tredicce

Published Jan 1, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given. We describe in particular a density grating obtained from the interaction between a strong e.m. pump field and an atomic vapor, which allows for the amplification of a probe field. Experimental results and an interpretation are offered in this case, together with suggestions for possible applications resulting from these systems. In particular we present a recent experiment that shows the combined effects of the two fundamental aspects of quantum optics, in the spontaneous generation, through momentum transfer between light and atoms, of a long range atomic density grating. The experiment is performed in a vapor of atomic sodium at temperatures between 460 and 800K.

DOI
10.1109/leos.1996.571974

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Summary form only given. We describe in particular a density grating obtained from the interaction between a strong e.m. pump field and an atomic vapor, which allows for the amplification of a probe field. Experimental results and an interpretation are offered in this case, together with suggestions for possible applications resulting from these systems. In particular we present a recent experiment that shows the combined effects of the two fundamental aspects of quantum optics, in the spontaneous generation, through momentum transfer between light and atoms, of a long range atomic density grating. The experiment is performed in a vapor of atomic sodium at temperatures between 460 and 800K.
We present measurements of probe beam amplification in Na vapor at intermediate density values, in both the counterpropagating and copropagating directions (with respect to the pump beam) in the case of degenerate pump and probe frequencies. Strong gain is observed only in the counterpropagating direction for parameters that preclude the possibility of Raman or Rayleigh gain. We show that the experimental results can be interpreted in terms of the spontaneous formation of a density grating due to the nonresonant interaction between the electromagnetic field and the atoms.
This paper investigates stimulated emission and absorption near resonance for a driven system of interacting two-level atoms. Microscopic kinetic equations for the density matrix elements of N-atom states including atomic motion are built, taking into account atom-field and atom-atom interactions. Analytical solutions are given for the resulting macroscopic equations in different limits, for a system composed of a strong coherent “pump” field and a weak counter-propagating “probe” field. It was shown that the existence of a dipole-dipole (long-range) interaction between atoms separated by distance less than the pump wave-length can cause the formation of periodic polarization and population structures (gratings in time and space) in the pumped medium without a probe field. The magnitude of pump induced population grating can have a strong dependence on the relation between the pump field detuning and the polarization decay rate. The “interaction” between pump and probe induced polarization/population gratings through a dipole-dipole interaction mechanism causes the absorption line shape asymmetry. Under certain conditions, this asymmetry is revealed in increasing probe gain for the “red”-shifted (relative to pump) probe and suppressing the gain for the “blue”-shifted probe field when pump is “red”-shifted relative to the ensemble averaged resonant frequency. The theoretical results are consistent with experimental data for the probe gain or absorption as the function of frequency and the dependance of the gain on atomic density for sodium vapor when the pump laser is tuned near the D 2 line. Here the dependance of gain on particle density was explained in the terms of the long-range interaction between the atoms.
Summary form only given. The interaction between an intense pump beam and a weak probe beam in an atomic vapor has been the subject of numerous investigations. Besides the well-known features in the frequency spectrum of the light, interesting spatial phenomena are observed. They are due to the inhomogeneous intensity distribution of a laser beam, coupled to propagation, and range from self-focusing or defocusing effects to the generation of localized distributions of light that propagate self-similarly (bright or dark solitons). We investigate the reshaping of a probe beam due to the interaction with a pump in sodium vapor, a problem that is important in many different contexts.
We present the results of an experimental and theoretical study of the gain experienced by a weak probe beam propagating through a sodium vapor in the presence of an intense pump field that is nearly resonant with the 3s→3p atomic transition. This interaction provides a means by which the outputs of two lasers can be combined coherently. The probe transmission spectrum is comprised of three distinct features, two of which result in amplification of the probe wave. The origin of these features can be traced to the modification of the atomic level structure by the ac Stark effect. The experimentally measured spectra are in good agreement with the predictions of a theoretical model based on the solution of the density-matrix equations of motion for a two-level atom and including the effects of Doppler broadening. The dependence of the induced gain on the pressure of a helium buffer gas has been measured and is in good agreement with the predictions of theory. The maximum gain observed in these experiments occurs at one of the Rabi sidebands and leads to a 38-fold increase in the intensity of the probe wave.
Realization of the analogues of optical components for the manipulation of atomic de Broglie waves has recently become possible through the use of laser-based techniques. The strong fields generated by laser light have already been used to reflect atoms using travelling evanescent waves, and to diffract atomic beams through small angles using transmission gratings formed by a standing laser light wave in vacuo. Present experiments aim to combine these techniques to produce a reflection diffraction grating formed by a standing evanescent laser-light field, and to exploit the larger diffraction angles made possible theoretically by such a scheme.
We have theoretically and experimentally investigated coherent pump-probe spectra for the 3S1/23{S}_{1/2}3S1/2​-3P1/23{P}_{1/2}3P1/2​ D1D1D1 transition of sodium atomic vapor. Probe transmission spectra in the presence of a coupling beam exhibit dramatic changes depending on experimental conditions. In the weak-excitation, low-atomic-density limit, the spectra are mainly characterized by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and saturated absorption, but for the strong-excitation, high-density case, parametric amplification (PA) is dominant, featuring high probe gain and Stokes-wave generation. We have developed a theory that can explain these two seemingly totally different phenomena (EIT and PA) within the same theoretical framework by manipulating a few experimentally controllable parameters, and have successfully reproduced the observed spectra. Other than the main spectral features, many other interesting physical processes have been predicted and observed.