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Physical Review A

Mirrorless parametric oscillation in an atomic Raman process

Kai Zhang, Jinxian Guo, Chun-Hua Yuan, L. Q. Chen, Cheng-ling Bian, Bing Chen, Z. Y. Ou, Weiping Zhang

Published Jun 27, 2014• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate experimentally and theoretically the onset of parametric oscillation in a single-pass atomic Raman scattering process without the optical feedback. We find that this Raman oscillation effect is due to the coherent buildup of the atomic spin waves, and therefore the threshold of the Raman pump power for the onset of the oscillation depends on the decoherence time of the atomic spin waves and the Raman coupling constant but is not sensitive to the loss of the Stokes field, unlike the effect of amplified spontaneous emission. A simple theory of atomic Raman process fits the experimental results very well. The long decoherence time of the atomic spin waves in the atomic Raman process leads to a threshold power as low as a few hundred microwatts.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.063826

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We investigate experimentally and theoretically the onset of parametric oscillation in a single-pass atomic Raman scattering process without the optical feedback. We find that this Raman oscillation effect is due to the coherent buildup of the atomic spin waves, and therefore the threshold of the Raman pump power for the onset of the oscillation depends on the decoherence time of the atomic spin waves and the Raman coupling constant but is not sensitive to the loss of the Stokes field, unlike the effect of amplified spontaneous emission. A simple theory of atomic Raman process fits the experimental results very well. The long decoherence time of the atomic spin waves in the atomic Raman process leads to a threshold power as low as a few hundred microwatts.
We report the demonstration of a mirrorless optical parametric oscillator with a tunable threshold in laser-cooled atoms with four-wave mixing (FWM) using electromagnetically induced transparency. Driven by two classical laser beams, the generated Stokes and anti-Stokes fields counterpropagate and build up efficient intrinsic feedback through the nonlinear FWM process. This feedback does not involve any cavity or spatially distributed microstructures. We observe the transition of photon correlation properties from the biphoton quantum regime (below the threshold) to the oscillation regime (above the threshold). The pump threshold can be tuned by varying the operating parameters. We achieve the oscillation with a threshold as low as 15 μW.
Summary form only given. Theoretical and experimental work of past few years on atomic coherence and interference has demonstrated a potential to improve significantly the existing nonlinear optical techniques. In this contribution we present theoretical and experimental results demonstrating the possibility of efficient parametric oscillation in Raman-like double-/spl Delta/ systems. We discuss the possible applications of this process for quantum noise suppression and nonlinear mixing at a very low (few photon) power level.
Coherent conversion between a Raman pump field and its Stokes field is observed in a Raman process with a strong atomic spin wave initially prepared by another Raman process operated in the stimulated emission regime. The oscillatory behavior resembles the Rabi oscillation in atomic population in a two-level atomic system driven by a strong light field. The Rabi-like oscillation frequency is found to be related to the strength of the prebuilt atomic spin wave. High conversion efficiency of 40% from the Raman pump field to the Stokes field is recorded and it is independent of the input Raman pump field. This process can act as a photon frequency multiplexer and may find wide applications in quantum information science.
A new Raman process can be used to realize efficient Raman frequency conversion by coherent feedback at low light intensity [Chen B, Zhang K, Bian C L, Qiu C, Yuan C H, Chen L Q, Ou Z Y, and Zhang W P 2013 Opt. Express 21 , 10490]. We present a theoretical model to describe this enhanced Raman process, termed as cascade correlation-enhanced Raman scattering, which is a Raman process injected by a seeded light field. It is correlated with the initially prepared atomic spin excitation and driven by the quasi-standing-wave pump fields, and the processes are repeated until the Stokes intensities are saturated. Such an enhanced Raman scattering may find applications in quantum information, nonlinear optics, and optical metrology due to its simplicity.
By implementing a parametric down-conversion process with a strong signal field injection, we demonstrate that frequency down-conversion from pump photons to idler photons can be a coherent process. Contrary to a common misconception, we show that the process can be free of quantum noise. With an interference experiment, we demonstrate that coherence is preserved in the conversion process. This technique could lead to a high-fidelity quantum state transfer from a high-frequency photon to a low-frequency photon and connect a missing link in quantum networks. Coherent and efficient nonlinear interaction and frequency conversion are of great interest in many areas of quantum optics. Traditionally, the low efficiency of Raman scattering is improved by a high-finesse optical resonator or stimulated Raman conversion. It was recently found that the atomic spin wave initially built through electromagnetically induced transparency or a weak Raman process can actively enhance the Raman frequency conversion. An experimental demonstration of an efficient Raman conversion scheme with coherent feedback of both pump and Stokes fields is presented. The temporal profile of the generated Raman pulse shows that the coherence time of the atomic spin wave is $\sim$1.8 ms. A laser-like power threshold is observed and its low threshold is attributed to the long coherence time of the atomic spin wave. The mechanism of the conversion enhancement process is discussed and the conversion efficiency of a single pass of the beams is compared with that of double passes. Finally, a beat signal is observed between the two Stokes fields and its Fourier transform shows that the frequency difference is caused by the AC Stark effect. Precision phase measurement is traditionally restricted by the standard quantum limit. However, this limit is not as fundamental as the Heisenberg limit and can be circumvented by use of nonclassical quantum states and structure modification of the interferometers. Several examples of nonlinear interferometers are proposed and implemented. The wave propagation equations for the nonlinear interferometers are solved. The interference fringes are measured and compared with that of linear interferometers. The first nonlinear interferometer presented is based on second harmonic generation and degenerate parametric down-conversion. The second nonlinear interferometer is composed of two parametric amplifiers. The idea of nonlinear beam splitters is introduced as an analogy to traditional beam splitters. We show that a nonlinear interferometer can be built alternatively by using only one parametric amplifier. Type II phase-matched crystals can be used to increase the amplification factor. An interferometer based on a Raman amplifier is analyzed for its application to sensitive magnetic field measurement.
A quantum amplifier usually adds extra noise inevitably through coupling to internal degrees of freedom while amplifying the signal. The introduction of quantum correlations can effectively suppress this extra noise. In this work, we utilize the established quantum correlation between the Stokes field and atomic spin waves in the Raman amplification process to feedback a portion of the Stokes field into the amplifier. This leads to a reduction in quantum noise that is independent of the feedback loss at high gain. A maximum of 6 dB noise reduction is observed. The single-path feedback amplifier is found to be sensitive to the feedback phase, a property that expands its potential for applications in quantum precision measurement, and the general concept can be extended to integrated optics and fiber optic systems.