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Physical Review A

Tuning the scale factor and sensitivity of a passive cavity with optical pumping

Krishna Myneni, David D. Smith, Jamiu A. Odutola, Charles Schambeau

Published Jun 11, 2012• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The pushing of the Fabry-Perot cavity modes by an intracavity medium of Rb vapor may be tuned with optical pumping. A second laser, propagating through the Rb vapor orthogonal to the intracavity beam, is used to modify the optical transmission of the Rb vapor. We demonstrate that the cavity scale factor may be switched from $S>1$, on one side of its pole along the gain axis, to the other side of the pole, where mode splitting occurs, simply by changing the pumping transition. Continuous tuning of the cavity scale factor and sensitivity may be realized by varying the intensity and/or frequency of the pump beam.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.85.063813

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The pushing of the Fabry-Perot cavity modes by an intracavity medium of Rb vapor may be tuned with optical pumping. A second laser, propagating through the Rb vapor orthogonal to the intracavity beam, is used to modify the optical transmission of the Rb vapor. We demonstrate that the cavity scale factor may be switched from S>1S>1S>1, on one side of its pole along the gain axis, to the other side of the pole, where mode splitting occurs, simply by changing the pumping transition. Continuous tuning of the cavity scale factor and sensitivity may be realized by varying the intensity and/or frequency of the pump beam.
The pushing of the Fabry-Perot cavity modes by an intracavity medium of Rb vapor may be tuned with optical pumping. A second laser, propagating through the Rb vapor orthogonal to the intracavity beam, is used to modify the optical transmission of the Rb vapor. We demonstrate that the cavity scale factor may be switched from Sg1Sg1Sg1, on one side of its pole along the gain axis, to the other side of the pole, where mode splitting occurs, simply by changing the pumping transition. Continuous tuning of the cavity scale factor and sensitivity may be realized by varying the intensity and/or frequency of the pump beam.
We have measured mode pushing by the dispersion of a rubidium vapor in a Fabry-Perot cavity and have shown that the scale factor and sensitivity of a passive cavity can be strongly enhanced by the presence of such an anomalous dispersion medium. The enhancement is the result of the atom-cavity coupling, which provides a positive feedback to the cavity response. The cavity sensitivity can also be controlled and tuned through a pole by a second, optical pumping, beam applied transverse to the cavity. Alternatively, the sensitivity can be controlled by the introduction of a second counter-propagating input beam that interferes with the first beam, coherently increasing the cavity absorptance. We show that the pole in the sensitivity occurs when the sum of the effective group index and an additional cavity delay factor that accounts for mode reshaping goes to zero, and is an example of an exceptional point, commonly associated with coupled non- Hermitian Hamiltonian systems. Additionally we show that a normal dispersion feature can decrease the cavity scale factor and can be generated through velocity selective optical pumping.
The pushing of the modes of a Fabry-Perot cavity by an intracavity rubidium cell is measured. The scale factor of the modes is increased by the anomalous dispersion and is inversely proportional to the sum of the effective group index and an additional cavity delay factor that arises from the variation of the Rb absorption over a free spectral range. This additional positive feedback further increases the effect of the anomalous dispersion and goes to zero at the lasing threshold. The mode width does not grow as fast as the scale factor as the intracavity absorption is increased resulting in enhanced measurement sensitivities. For absorptions larger than the scale factor pole, the atom-cavity response is multivalued and mode splitting occurs.
We demonstrate a nonlinear optical resonator that tunes itself onto resonance with an input beam. In a monolithic Fabry-Perot cavity implemented in rubidium-doped periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate, an intensity-dependent refractive index produces line pulling by multiple free-spectral ranges (FSRs). In this condition, the cavity passively maintains optical resonance in the face of FSR-scale excursions of the drive laser frequency: when one resonant operating point becomes unstable, the resonator rapidly transitions to another resonant operating point. We demonstrate stable second-harmonic generation with no active feedback to the laser or cavity. The self-tuning effect appears to be supported by a very strong, previously unreported optical nonlinearity.
We demonstrate the operation of a closed-loop fast-light cavity that allows rapid (~10 ms) measurements of the cavity mode frequency and its uncertainty. We vary the scale factor by temperature tuning the atomic density of an intracavity vapor cell. The cavity remains locked even as the system passes through the critical anomalous dispersion where a pole is observed in the scale factor. Positive and negative scale-factor enhancements as large as |S| ≈70 were obtained. To our knowledge, these are the first experiments that demonstrate a scale-factor enhancement in a closed-loop fast-light device by changing the optical path length, laying the groundwork for the improvement of cavity-based metrology instruments such as optical gyroscopes.