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Physical Review A

Negative refraction without absorption via quantum coherence

Aiping Fang, Wenchao Ge, Meng Wang, Fuli Li, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Feb 18, 2016• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Negative refraction of a probe field is studied in a dense gas consisting of cascade-type four-level atoms. By coupling the magnetic component of the probe field to a $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ scheme with initially prepared coherence in the two lower levels, strong negative permeability with minimal absorption can be obtained. The permittivity of the gas to the electric component of the probe field can be made negative by taking into account the local field effect of the dense atoms. Strong negative refraction with zero absorption can be achieved in a wide range of parameters in our scheme. A possible experimental realization is also discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.023822

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Negative refraction of a probe field is studied in a dense gas consisting of cascade-type four-level atoms. By coupling the magnetic component of the probe field to a \ensuremathΛ\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\ensuremathΛ scheme with initially prepared coherence in the two lower levels, strong negative permeability with minimal absorption can be obtained. The permittivity of the gas to the electric component of the probe field can be made negative by taking into account the local field effect of the dense atoms. Strong negative refraction with zero absorption can be achieved in a wide range of parameters in our scheme. A possible experimental realization is also discussed.
We propose two dense gas schemes of four-level 'Lambda'-type and V-type atoms based on the effect of quantum coherence. It is shown that under certain conditions the dense gas can simultaneously exhibit negative permittivity and negative permeability, and thus become a negative refractive-index material. Furthermore, by analyzing the absorption property of the left-handed materials, we find that the absoption can be reduced via choosing appropriate parameters. Such schemes might be used to fabricate isotropic and homogeneous left-handed material with vanishing absorption in a wider optical frequency band.
This paper intends to realize negative refraction with absorption suppressed by the electromagneticly induced transparency(EIT) in a dense four-level atomic system. Without the two equal transition frequencies responding to the probe field, the atomic system displays a negative refraction with the simultaneously negative permittivity and negative permeability(Left-handedness). The response of the probe field is amplified and propagates transparency in some frequency extents. Therefore, our aim for searching the low-loss negative refraction can be achieved in the scheme, given the main applied limitation of the negative refractive materials is the large amount of dissipation and absorption. However, an excessive signal field intensity would increase the absorption near the resonance in our scheme.
A closed four-level system in atomic vapour is proposed, which is made to possess left handedness by using the technique of quantum coherence. The density matrix method is utilized in view of the rotating-wave approximation and the effect of a local field in dense gas. The numerical simulation result shows that the negative permittivity and the negative permeability of the medium can be achieved simultaneously (i.e. the left handedness) in a wider frequency band under appropriate parameter conditions. Furthermore, when analysing the dispersion property of the left-handed material, we can find that the probe beam propagation can be controlled from superluminal to subluminal, or vice versa via changing the detuning of the probe field.
This research focuses on a coherently driven four-level atomic medium with the aim of inducing a negative index of refraction while taking into consideration local field corrections as well as magnetoelectric cross coupling (i.e.,chirality) within the material's response functions. Two control fields are used to render the medium transparent for a probe field which simultaneously couples to an electric and a magnetic dipole transition, thus allowing one to test the permittivity and permeability of the material at the same time. Numerical simulations show that a negative index of refraction with low absorption can be obtained for a range of probe detunings while depending on number density and the ratio between the intensities of the control fields.
A new mechanism for realizing negative refractive index with a four-level atomic system is suggested. The explicit expressions for the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability at probe frequency are presented. It is shown that there is a frequency band in which the four-level photonic-resonant atomic vapour may exhibit simultaneously negative permittivity and permeability, and that such an atomic vapour may become a left-handed material (negatively refracting medium). Compared with the previous schemes to realize negative refraction within the framework of classical electromagnetic theory, the most remarkable features of the present scenario are as follows: (i) isotropic material with microscopic structure units at atomic-scale level, (ii) negative refraction in visible and infrared frequency bands, (iii) controllable manipulation by external fields and (iv) based on quantum coherence in a multilevel atomic system.