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International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics

Exploring dissipative optical solitons controlling gain and loss in atomic systems

Nuno A. Silva, Tiago D. Ferreira, Ariel Guerreiro

Published Oct 3, 2019• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Solitons are localized wave solutions that appear in nonlinear systems when self-focusing effects balance the usual pulse dispersion of common optical media. Their stability and particle-like behavior make them ideal candidates for applications that range from communication to optical computing, but in real world physical systems, dissipative processes makes these otherwise stable solutions unstable, and true solitons are particularly hard to observe in systems featuring non-negligible dissipation. In these cases a special type of localized stable solutions, called dissipative solitons, are still possible to obtain, if in addition to a balance between diffraction and nonlinearity, an equilibrium between gain and loss is also present. In this work we discuss theoretically how a 4-level atomic system and an incoherent pumping process can be an ideal experimental testbed for studying this interesting class of solutions, featuring tunable optical properties and controllable gain/loss dynamics that allow to study both classes of temporal and spatial dissipative optical solitons.

DOI
10.1117/12.2527338

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Solitons are localized wave solutions that appear in nonlinear systems when self-focusing effects balance the usual pulse dispersion of common optical media. Their stability and particle-like behavior make them ideal candidates for applications that range from communication to optical computing, but in real world physical systems, dissipative processes makes these otherwise stable solutions unstable, and true solitons are particularly hard to observe in systems featuring non-negligible dissipation. In these cases a special type of localized stable solutions, called dissipative solitons, are still possible to obtain, if in addition to a balance between diffraction and nonlinearity, an equilibrium between gain and loss is also present. In this work we discuss theoretically how a 4-level atomic system and an incoherent pumping process can be an ideal experimental testbed for studying this interesting class of solutions, featuring tunable optical properties and controllable gain/loss dynamics that allow to study both classes of temporal and spatial dissipative optical solitons.
This work models the propagation of an optical pulse in a 4-level atomic system in the electromagnetic induced transparency regime. By demonstrating that linear and nonlinear optical properties can be externally controlled and tailored by a continuous-wave control laser beam and an assisting incoherent pump field, it is shown how these media can provide an excellent framework to experimentally explore pulse dynamics in the presence of non-conservative terms, either gain or loss. Furthermore, we explore the existence of stable dissipative soliton solutions, testing the analytical results with computational simulations of both the effective (1+1)-dimensional model and the full Maxwell-Bloch system of equations.
Abstract This work models the propagation of an optical pulse in a four-level atomic system in the electromagnetically induced transparency regime. By demonstrating that linear and nonlinear optical properties can be externally controlled and tailored by a continuous-wave control laser beam and an assisting incoherent pump field, it is shown how these media can provide an excellent framework to experimentally explore pulse dynamics in the presence of non-conservative terms, either gain or loss. Furthermore, we explore the existence of stable dissipative soliton solutions, testing the analytical results with computational simulations of both the effective (1+1)-dimensional model and the full Maxwell–Bloch system of equations.
Temporal dissipative solitons are central to nonlinear photonics, yet conventional platforms such as optical fibers and microresonators provide limited dispersion tunability and weak nonlinearities. Here, we demonstrate a highly tunable soliton platform based on atom–light interactions in a rubidium vapor optical parametric oscillator. A continuous-wave pump drives four-wave mixing in the vapor, generating probe and conjugate fields, one of which is fed back through a fiber loop to form the oscillator. By tuning the pump intensity and detuning, we control the dispersive properties and third-order nonlinearity of the medium, enabling the formation of diverse nonlinear states including bright and dark solitons, soliton crystals, dark–bright soliton pairs, platicons, and breather solitons. Unlike conventional systems, solitons emerge spontaneously without cavity scanning or pulsed excitation. The system isolates gain, dispersion, and nonlinearity within the atomic medium, allowing flexible cavity-length tuning without modifying other operating parameters. We introduce the technique of characterizing the solitonic states through the linewidth of the output intensity power spectrum, which remains independent of cavity length and is limited only by the experimental apparatus, indicating a high degree of phase coherence. This contrasts with conventional mode-locked states, for which the linewidth scales inversely with the square of the cavity length. With pulse durations of ∼100 ns determined by the gain bandwidth of the four-wave mixing, the solitons can be directly detected for rapid and complete characterization. This platform offers a versatile route for exploring nonlinear optical dynamics and developing applications in quantum photonics and communication.
Spatial and temporal solitons are at the core of many physical, geological, biological, transmission and information processing and other problems. However, in most cases we have focused on their steady behavior, and therefore on homogeneous media and their single soliton eigenvalues spectrum. This has been done even in the case of an all optical simultaneous loss and amplification, where we have assumed stability of those eigenvalues. However, the transient behavior has received little attention, often disregarded under a generic pulse reshaping or experimentally diafragmed as often occurs in large amplifiers. But such transient behavior can be frozen in a periodic nonhomogenous media, tandems, where such behavior corresponds to the soliton convergence in each tandem media, producing a regular but not steady behavior. We discuss the resonant pulse propagation in a two level atom media tandem, described by a real convergence and a Kerr intensity dependent nonlinearity, described by a complex convergence.
We employ an alternative control of diffraction based on the generation of slow-light dissipative solitons for a three-level medium in a cavity pumped by two quasi-resonant fields. Complex self-organised structures and spatial localization of light due to the interaction of diffraction and nonlinearity in optical cavities have important applications in optics and photonics, ranging from digital optical memories to delay lines. Note that conservative Raman solitons with slow-light have been observed in free propagation in a planar CS2waveguide by using the localization of a pump field.
Dynamics and stability of solitons in two-dimensional (2D) Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC), with one-dimensional (1D) conservative plus dissipative nonlinear optical lattices, are investigated. In the case of focusing media (with attractive atomic systems), the collapse of the wave packet is arrested by the dissipative periodic nonlinearity. The adiabatic variation of the background scattering length leads to metastable matter-wave solitons. When the atom feeding mechanism is used, a dissipative soliton can exist in focusing 2D media with 1D periodic nonlinearity. In the defocusing media (repulsive BEC case) with harmonic trap in one direction and nonlinear optical lattice in the other direction, the stable soliton can exist. Variational approach simulations are confirmed by full numerical results for the 2D Gross-Pitaevskii equation.