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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Destructive multiphoton interference in optical coherent transients

Fred Moshary, Barry M. Gross, Y. Zhang, Sam Ahmed, S. Hartmann

Published May 12, 2000• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Summary form only given. Suitable probing of an accumulated population grating can induce destructive interference among various order wave-mixing processes under strong saturation conditions, resulting in the suppression of the scattered signal. A similar effect is predicted in transient four-wave-mixing (FWM) with stochastic pumps. Experimental results for the latter case are presented.

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A. D. Wilson‐Gordon, Harry Friedmann

It is shown that saturation causes the three-peaked four-wave-mixing (FWM) signal at frequency 2${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$-${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, obtained from the interaction of a two-level system with a ``probe'' laser of varying frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ and a ``pump'' laser of fixed frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$, to become asymmetrical on increasing the probe-laser intensity. Whereas saturation peaks occur in the population-inversion spectrum at one-photon and multiphoton resonances, this is not so for the FWM spectrum, where often the peaks correspond to nothing more than minima in the population-inversion spectrum.

Physical Review A•Oct 1, 1988•16 citations
Summary form only given. Suitable probing of an accumulated population grating can induce destructive interference among various order wave-mixing processes under strong saturation conditions, resulting in the suppression of the scattered signal. A similar effect is predicted in transient four-wave-mixing (FWM) with stochastic pumps. Experimental results for the latter case are presented.
We analyze a lifetime-broadened four-state four-wave-mixing (FWM) scheme in the ultraslow propagation regime and show that the generated FWM field can acquire the same group velocity and pulse shape as those of an ultraslow pump field. We show that a new type of induced transparency resulted from multiphoton destructive interference that significantly reduced the pump field loss. Such induced transparency based on multphoton destructive interference may have important applications in other nonlinear optical processes.
We show that in order to describe completely the coherent coupling between the pump and probe pulses in a pump– probe measurement of transient absorption, the influence of induced phase gratings must be included. The importance of phase gratings is demonstrated experimentally for the case of a bleachable dye and analyzed in terms of transient four-wave mixing. These results are relevant to the interpretation of pump–probe measurements on all time scales performed with pulses from a single laser, particularly when the pulse duration is comparable with the material response time.
Competition has been observed between amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and four-wave mixing (FWM). Previously, competition between an incoherent and coherent process was observed in the form of suppression of multiphoton ionization by third harmonic generation.1,2 In our experiment, an input laser was tuned precisely to the 3s → 3d two-photon allowed transition in atomic sodium vapor and the emission was observed in both the forward and backward directions. In these conditions, either FWM or ASE can occur. Ignoring the possibility of competition between these two processes, the calculated gain for ASE is much larger than that for FWM. However, we have observed experimentally that FWM and not ASE occur. To determine that it is the presence of efficient FWM that suppresses ASE, we have excited the atomic vapor instead with counterpropagating pump waves of different frequency. In this case, FWM, being a phase-matched process, cannot occur and strong ASE is observed. The nature of this competition is explained by solving the coupled Maxwell and density matrix equations for a three-level system. It is found that the suppression is due to the destructive interference between two different pathways of excitation of the 3d level which results in trapping of the population in the ground state.
It is shown that saturation causes the three-peaked four-wave-mixing (FWM) signal at frequency 2${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$-${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, obtained from the interaction of a two-level system with a ``probe'' laser of varying frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ and a ``pump'' laser of fixed frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$, to become asymmetrical on increasing the probe-laser intensity. Whereas saturation peaks occur in the population-inversion spectrum at one-photon and multiphoton resonances, this is not so for the FWM spectrum, where often the peaks correspond to nothing more than minima in the population-inversion spectrum.