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Physical Review X

Quantum Amplification by Superradiant Emission of Radiation

Anatoly A. Svidzinsky, Luqi Yuan, Marlan O. Scully

Published Oct 8, 2013• 60 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Light amplification in lasers usually relies on populating higher energy levels with more light emitters than lower energy levels. Scientists propose a new way of amplifying light without such population inversion, based on their discovery of resonant superradiant emission from an atomic ensemble interacting with a driving light field.
DOI
10.1103/physrevx.3.041001

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Lasers and masers typically require population inversion. But with phase coherent atoms (phasers), we get lasing without inversion (e.g. 10% of the atoms excited). However, in recent work we found that it is possible to get coherent light emitted with no atoms excited, via Quantum Amplification of Superradiant Emission of Radiation (QASER). In particular, we found that by utilizing collective superradiant emission, we can generate coherent light at high frequency in the UV or x-ray bands by driving the atomic system with lower frequency source. Here, we present a simple analysis based on near-resonant QASER operation and on a multi-photon Hamiltonian obtained by, e.g. a canonical transformation.
When an atomic system interacts with light, it can amplify the electromagnetic radiation when gain exceeds loss. This requires that transitions from the upper level to the lower level prevail over the transitions from the lower level to the upper level. If one deals with a two-level system, the only way to obtain amplification is to create a state of population inversion, i.e. the upper level must be more densely populated that the lower level. "Lasing without inversion" may be possible when part of the atoms are trapped, which removes them from the subspace of states with which the upper level can have transitions. This chapter determines to what extent population inversion is necessary to achieve amplification. Independently, amplification without inversion and lasing without inversion were predicted by Harris using a different type of atomic interference. The amplification threshold has a number of features that are reminiscent of the laser threshold.
This work is focused on quantum coherence and superradiant emission in a dense pencil-like multi-level medium where many novel effects appear such as transient lasing without inversion, coherence-brightened sky laser, and quantum amplification by superradiant emission of radiation. \n\nWe start from an interesting cascade model where quantum coherence effects can lead to surprising phenomena, gain without population inversion and gain suppression, under different parameters. We further show superradiant emission inside helium plasma. The population evolution shows the decay is significantly faster than collisional decoherence and spontaneous decay rates. This indicates superradiant coherent behavior of the atomic system inside the plasma.\n\nBased on these results, we demonstrate lasing without inversion on a time scale shorter than the decoherence time. The possibility of transient lasing without inversion holds promise for lasing in the extreme-ultraviolet/x-ray regime. We propose experiments to demonstrate this in helium or helium-like ions plasma. \n\nWe also study coherent emission from ambient air and demonstrate efficient generation of laser-like beams directed both forward and backward with respect to a nanosecond ultraviolet pumping laser beam. The emission process exhibits nonadiabatic quantum coherence, which is similar in nature to Dicke superradiance. This coherence-brightened backward light source in air provides possibility for atmospheric remote sensing through a phase-matched coherent Raman scattering process.\n\nFinally, we present a new kind of quantum amplifier, the QASER (quantum amplification by superradiant emission of radiation), based on collective superradiant emission which does not require initial population in the excited state. We show that parametric resonance between the driving field and collective superradiant oscillations of the atomic polarization can yield light amplification at high frequencies. The resulting superradiant amplifier is many orders of magnitude more efficient than nonlinear multiphoton excitation and holds promise as a new way to generate high-frequency coherent radiation.