Tunable Optical Delay in Doppler-Broadened Cesium Vapor

Monte D. Anderson, Glen P. Perram

Denis V. Brazhnikov, Moustafa Abdel Hafiz, Grégoire Coget +4 more

Junmin Wang, Y. Wang, Shubin Yan +2 more

Ryan M. Camacho, Michael Vern Pack, John C. Howell

We report on the experimental realization of large fractional pulse delays in a hot, Doppler-broadened rubidium vapor. A pump laser burns a deep spectral hole in the inhomogeneously broadened vapor. The delay is shown to be widely tunable by both power broadening the resonance and frequency modulating the pump laser. The simplicity of the scheme opens up the possibility for practical optical delays and buffers.

Isaac D. Abella

Monte D. Anderson, Eric M. Guild, Glen P. Perram

Optically tunable pulse delays in cesium vapor were demonstrated by pumping several D2 transitions and burning holes in the D1 absorption spectrum. A modified sub-Doppler absorption spectroscopy setup was used with counter propagating beams with a Gaussian 7-ns full-width at half-maximum probe pulse is scanned across the D1 absorption spectrum. Probe laser optical delays followed Kramers-Kronig model prediction for Cs D1 without D2 pump laser. Optical control of pulse delay was demonstrated by varying pump intensity. Localized delay effects in agreement with model predictions were observed in the neighborhood of a burnt hole.