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Vacuum-induced transparency

Haruka Tanji, Wenlan Chen, Renate Landig, Jonathan Simon, Vladan Vuletić

Published Aug 1, 2011• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Engineered strong photon-photon interactions would enable a broad range of applications in quantum information processing. We demonstrate, using an ensemble of atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, that light transmission through an opaque medium may be controlled with a few photons and even with the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum field induces 40% transmission, accompanied by a group delay of 25 ns, which corresponds to the light pulse propagating at 1600 m/s through the medium. The transmission increases to 80% when ~10 photons are injected into the cavity. The strong optical nonlinearity at a few-photon level observed in this system opens prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon-number-state filters.

DOI
10.1109/iqec-cleo.2011.6194176

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The realization of nonlinear systems able to mediate strong interactions between light fields at the few photon level in an environment with minimal absorption represents a cornerstone for future developments of quantum information science and photonic quantum technologies.One approach to reach this goal is via strong coupling of single emitters to optical cavities as provided by cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).The other one is via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with single atoms or with atomic ensembles.This thesis reports on a system which merges both single-atom cavity QED in the strong coupling regime and EIT.First, we characterize this system theoretically and show that its energy eigenstates are very similar to the well known Jaynes-Cummings ladder of eigenstates.However, here, the eigenstates are optically controllable via the control field Rabi frequency provided by EIT.We show that increasing the control field Rabi frequency enhances the normalmode splitting, and therefore the effective light-matter coupling.Moreover, with this system we are able to observe photon blockade and a two-photon gateway for the same input probe field and to tune the behavior of the secondorder correlation function optically.Thanks to the long coherence times of EIT, photon blockade can be prolonged in time for longer times than the decay rates of the system.We refer to this effect as photon blockade with memory.Next, we verify our theoretical findings experimentally.By performing spectroscopy measurements on the single-atom cavity EIT system, we show an unprecedented EIT on/off contrast of about 80 % thanks to our strong atomcavity coupling rate.Later, we show experimentally, the ability to generate both, photon blockade and a two-photon gateway, for the same input field by just varying the control field Rabi frequency.Finally, by performing timedependent second-order correlations we observe strong oscillations in the correlations which are a result of the creation of a new light field in the cavity which beats with the impinging probe laser.We show experimentally that this new field has a coherence time longer than the decay rates of the system, confirming its EIT origin.In a final experiment, we take advantage of the strong atom-cavity coupling achieved to induce a group delay on probing pulses.Delays up to approximately 200 ns are measured.This is the first time a group delay is observed with a single atom as the delaying medium.iii

•Jan 1, 2016•0 citations
Engineered strong photon-photon interactions would enable a broad range of applications in quantum information processing. We demonstrate, using an ensemble of atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, that light transmission through an opaque medium may be controlled with a few photons and even with the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum field induces 40% transmission, accompanied by a group delay of 25 ns, which corresponds to the light pulse propagating at 1600 m/s through the medium. The transmission increases to 80% when ~10 photons are injected into the cavity. The strong optical nonlinearity at a few-photon level observed in this system opens prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon-number-state filters.
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number-state filters.
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number–state filters.
When a coherently prepared atomic medium is confined in an optical cavity, the atomic coherence and interference manifested by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be manipulated and enhanced by the collective atom–cavity coupling and the cavity feedback. We present an experimental study of the light transmission through an optical cavity coupled with coherently prepared cold Rb atoms. In the frequency domain, the cavity transmission spectrum exhibits spectral peaks representing the cavity normal modes associated with the multi-atom vacuum Rabi splitting and the intra-cavity dark state manifested by the combined EIT effects of the absorption suppression and the steep normal dispersion. In the time domain, a light pulse coupled into the cavity mode propagates with a slow group velocity and the propagation time delay is significantly increased by the cavity feedback.
Coherent preparation by laser light of quantum states of atoms and molecules can lead to quantum interference in the amplitudes of optical transitions. In this way the optical properties of a medium can be dramatically modified, leading to electromagnetically induced transparency and related effects, which have placed gas-phase systems at the center of recent advances in the development of media with radically new optical properties. This article reviews these advances and the new possibilities they offer for nonlinear optics and quantum information science. As a basis for the theory of electromagnetically induced transparency the authors consider the atomic dynamics and the optical response of the medium to a continuous-wave laser. They then discuss pulse propagation and the adiabatic evolution of field-coupled states and show how coherently prepared media can be used to improve frequency conversion in nonlinear optical mixing experiments. The extension of these concepts to very weak optical fields in the few-photon limit is then examined. The review concludes with a discussion of future prospects and potential new applications.
In the last few decades, coherent light-atom interactions have opened unprecedented possibilities for the coherent control of atomic and optical quantum systems, paved the way for the practical realization of quantum information technologies, and allowed for the creation of novel quantum-enhanced sensors. This dissertation investigates the interaction of multiple near-resonant optical fields with hot rubidium atoms under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency. The main goal of the presented research is to address some fundamental challenges in using such systems for practical applications. The EIT effect relies on the strong coupling of an optical probe field and a collective long-lived ensemble of atomic spins by the means of a strong classical optical control field in a Lambda configuration. While optically-thick atomic vapor is necessary to achieve such a strong coupling regime, the increasing optical depth of the atomic ensemble also leads to the effective enhancement of other nonlinear light-atom interactions, such as the four-wave mixing effect. Here we discuss the possibility to control four-wave mixing in a three-level system without deteriorating the coherent properties of EIT by introducing an additional absorber resonant exclusively with the Stokes field. The exclusive detection of a weak probe field in the presence of a strong control field is a challenging experimental task, especially at the few-photon level. Many experiments employ polarization and/or frequency filtering to compete the task. We present an alternative filtering technique based on optical vortices for cases when the traditional methods are not sufficient or restrict the experimental arrangements. Finally, we demonstrate the possibility to manipulate the group velocity of a pulsed squeezed vacuum field by using the optical dispersion modification via Zeeman spin coherence in rubidium atoms. By changing the interaction condition, we demonstrate the switch between the ``slow'' and (for the first time) ``fast'' light regime. We also show that increased optical depth simultaneously leads to the enhancement of pulse advancement and the deterioration of squeezing fidelity in the output pulses.
The realization of nonlinear systems able to mediate strong interactions between light fields at the few photon level in an environment with minimal absorption represents a cornerstone for future developments of quantum information science and photonic quantum technologies.One approach to reach this goal is via strong coupling of single emitters to optical cavities as provided by cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).The other one is via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with single atoms or with atomic ensembles.This thesis reports on a system which merges both single-atom cavity QED in the strong coupling regime and EIT.First, we characterize this system theoretically and show that its energy eigenstates are very similar to the well known Jaynes-Cummings ladder of eigenstates.However, here, the eigenstates are optically controllable via the control field Rabi frequency provided by EIT.We show that increasing the control field Rabi frequency enhances the normalmode splitting, and therefore the effective light-matter coupling.Moreover, with this system we are able to observe photon blockade and a two-photon gateway for the same input probe field and to tune the behavior of the secondorder correlation function optically.Thanks to the long coherence times of EIT, photon blockade can be prolonged in time for longer times than the decay rates of the system.We refer to this effect as photon blockade with memory.Next, we verify our theoretical findings experimentally.By performing spectroscopy measurements on the single-atom cavity EIT system, we show an unprecedented EIT on/off contrast of about 80 % thanks to our strong atomcavity coupling rate.Later, we show experimentally, the ability to generate both, photon blockade and a two-photon gateway, for the same input field by just varying the control field Rabi frequency.Finally, by performing timedependent second-order correlations we observe strong oscillations in the correlations which are a result of the creation of a new light field in the cavity which beats with the impinging probe laser.We show experimentally that this new field has a coherence time longer than the decay rates of the system, confirming its EIT origin.In a final experiment, we take advantage of the strong atom-cavity coupling achieved to induce a group delay on probing pulses.Delays up to approximately 200 ns are measured.This is the first time a group delay is observed with a single atom as the delaying medium.iii