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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Coupler-free surface polariton excitation and propagation with cold four-level atomic medium

Saeid Asgarnezhad-Zorgabad, Rasoul Sadighi‐Bonabi, Chao Hang

Published Aug 2, 2017• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The possibility of the direct excitation of surface polaritons (SPs) by the free-space laser fields at the interface of negative-index metamaterial (NIMM) layer and a bottom layer of cold double Lambda-type atomic medium is investigated. The giant field enhancement (up to |E/E0|2≈4.1), together with suppressed ohmic loss of the NIMM layer in a wide transparency window of a double electromagnetically induced transparency, results in the SPs generation. The excitation efficiency of these SPs can be effectively enhanced by applying the unidirectional atomic motion, modulation of the coupling laser characteristics, and using a probe laser with proper incident angle. Based on the special modulation of the driven fields parameters, the group velocity switching of the SPs is observed. In the nonlinear propagation regime of the SPs, a giant Kerr nonlinearity is produced by applying a negative unidirectional atomic velocity. The controllable optical Kerr effect in this coupler-free scheme results in the lossless propagation of the nonlinear SPs. It is revealed that the electromagnetically induced transparencybased system can be used for stable propagation of one-dimensional (1+1)D bright and dark superluminal polaritonic solitons. It is also shown that the proposed scheme could be easily realized in an experiment and hence can be used for various ultrafast optical devices.

DOI
10.1364/josab.34.001787

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The possibility of the direct excitation of surface polaritons (SPs) by the free-space laser fields at the interface of negative-index metamaterial (NIMM) layer and a bottom layer of cold double Lambda-type atomic medium is investigated. The giant field enhancement (up to |E/E0|2≈4.1), together with suppressed ohmic loss of the NIMM layer in a wide transparency window of a double electromagnetically induced transparency, results in the SPs generation. The excitation efficiency of these SPs can be effectively enhanced by applying the unidirectional atomic motion, modulation of the coupling laser characteristics, and using a probe laser with proper incident angle. Based on the special modulation of the driven fields parameters, the group velocity switching of the SPs is observed. In the nonlinear propagation regime of the SPs, a giant Kerr nonlinearity is produced by applying a negative unidirectional atomic velocity. The controllable optical Kerr effect in this coupler-free scheme results in the lossless propagation of the nonlinear SPs. It is revealed that the electromagnetically induced transparencybased system can be used for stable propagation of one-dimensional (1+1)D bright and dark superluminal polaritonic solitons. It is also shown that the proposed scheme could be easily realized in an experiment and hence can be used for various ultrafast optical devices.
We propose a scheme for the coupler-free excitation of surface polaritonic solitons and breathers in a planar plasmonic waveguide structure comprising a transparent layer, a metal layer, and a layer of a three-level lambda-type atomic medium. In the proposed system, an enhanced Kerr nonlinearity is achieved via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in the bottom atomic medium, which can be controlled through proper modulation of the frequency detunings and Rabi frequencies of the driving laser fields. This nonlinearity balances the dispersion in the system, thus providing the necessary condition for the excitation of polaritonic solitons in the proposed system. As a result, the system yields laterally self-trapped bright and dark surface polaritonic solitons that are tightly guided at the interface of the metal and the EIT medium. Furthermore, we investigate the excitation of surface polaritonic Akhmediev breathers at the metal-EIT medium interface in the proposed system. A stable propagation of the surface polaritonic Akhmediev breathers is achieved with the proper choice of parameters in the proposed planar plasmonic waveguide structure. This experimentally feasible scheme could be significant in the development of highly compact nanophotonic devices in the optical regime.
We theoretically study the spatial focusing of surface polaritons (SPs) in a negative index metamaterial-atomic gas interface waveguide system, based on cross phase modulation (XPM) in a tripod type double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) scheme. In the linear region, we realize the low-loss stable propagation of SPs, and the group velocities of the probe and signal fields are well matched via double EIT. In the nonlinear region, we show that giant enhancement of the XPM can be obtained. Using a narrow optical soliton in free space, we realize spatial focusing of the SPs solitons, including bright, multi bright, and gray solitons. The full width at the half-maximum of the SPs soliton can be compressed to about ten nanometers, thus, even nanofocusing can be obtained. The results obtained her e have certain theoretical significance for nano-scale sensing, spectral enhancement and precision measurement.
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) lasing requires population inversion, it is inefficient and possesses poor spectral properties. We develop an inversion-less concept for a quantum plasmonic waveguide that exploits unidirectional superradiant SPP (SSPP) emission of radiation to produce intense coherent surface plasmon beams. Our scheme includes a resonantly driven cold atomic medium in a lossless dielectric situated above an ultra-low loss negative index metamaterial (NIMM) layer. We propose generating unidirectional superradiant radiation of the plasmonic field within an atomic medium and a NIMM layer interface and achieve amplified SPPs by introducing phase-match between the superradiant SPP wave and coupled laser fields. We also establish a parametric resonance between the weak modulated plasmonic field and the collective oscillations of the atomic ensemble, thereby suppressing decoherence of the stably amplified directional polaritonic mode. Our method incorporates the quantum gain of the atomic medium to obtain sufficient conditions for coherent amplification of superradiant SPP waves, and we explore this method to quantum dynamics of the atomic medium being coupled with the weak polaritonic waves. Our waveguide configuration acts as a surface plasmon laser and quantum plasmonic transistor and opens prospects for designing controllable nano-scale lasers for quantum and nano-photonic applications.
We develop a concept for a waveguide that exploits spatial control of nonlinear surface-polaritonic waves. Our scheme includes an optical cavity with four-level NNN-type atoms in a lossless dielectric placed above a negative-index metamaterial layer. We propose exciting a polaritonic Akhmediev breather at a certain position of the interface between the atomic medium and the metamaterial by modifying laser-field intensities and detunings. Furthermore, we propose generating position-dependent polaritonic frequency combs by engineering widths of the electromagnetically induced transparency window commensurate with the surface-polaritonic modulation instability. Therefore, this waveguide acts as a high-speed polaritonic modulator and position-dependent frequency-comb generator, which can be applied to compact photonic chips.
We propose a scheme to study the electromagnetically induced grating (EIG) of surface polaritons (SPs) in a negative index metamaterial/rare-earth-ion-doped crystal interface waveguide system, based on coherent population oscillation (CPO) modulating by a standing wave control field. Absorption grating can be formed via the large absorption modulation induced by the linear susceptibility of the system; the diffraction of SPs can be realized but with a very small first-order diffraction efficiency and the phase modulation in this case, is negligible. However, when the giant Kerr nonlinearity is taken into account, the phase modulation can be significantly enhanced and accompanied by high transmission at the same time, thus, a phase grating, which effectively diffracts SPs into a high-order direction, can be induced. For both the absorption and phase grating, the dependencies of the first-order diffraction efficiency on the Rabi frequency of the standing wave control field, optical detuning, and interaction length are discussed. The results obtained here have certain theoretical significance for spectral enhancements and precision measurements at the micro–nanoscales.
We consider an active-Raman-gain scheme for realizing giant Kerr nonlinearity and superluminal optical solitons in a four-state atomic system with a gain doublet. We show that this scheme, which is fundamentally different from those based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), is capable of working at room temperature and eliminating nearly all attenuation and distortion.We demonstrate that, due to the appearance of a gain spectrum hole induced by the quantum interference effect induced by a signal field, a significant enhancement of Kerr nonlinearity of probe field can be realized effectively, which can be more than ten times larger than that arrived by the EIT-based scheme with the same energy-level configuration. Based on these important features, we obtain a giant cross-phase modulation effect and hence a stable long-distance propagation of optical solitons, which have superluminal propagating velocity and very low generating power.