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Optics Letters

Collapse of hybrid vector beam in Rb atomic vapor

Huajie Hu, Dajin Luo, Churong Pan, Yan Qin, Yingxin Zhang, Dong Wei, Haixia Chen, Hong Gao, Fuli Li

Published May 4, 2021• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In recent years, many researchers have tried to control and design the collapsing behavior of light beams in nonlinear media. Vector beams coupling with spin and orbit angular momentum freedom have attracted more and more attention. In this Letter, we study the collapse of a hybrid vector beam (HVB) propagating through rubidium atomic vapor. First, the HVB collapses into filaments located at positions with linear polarization. As propagation distance in atomic vapor increases, the locations of the filaments switch from positions with linear polarization to those with circular polarization. In this process, the absorption of the medium plays an important role. Results indicate that the absorption can be used as a degree of freedom to modulate the filamentation. Furthermore, by analyzing the polarization angle of an elliptically polarized position on the transverse plane of the HVB, we demonstrate the evolution of polarization distribution of HVB during propagation. Such results could have application in manipulating other structured beams and could be potentially applied to realize optical switches or logic for information processing.

DOI
10.1364/ol.423216

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In recent years, many researchers have tried to control and design the collapsing behavior of light beams in nonlinear media. Vector beams coupling with spin and orbit angular momentum freedom have attracted more and more attention. In this Letter, we study the collapse of a hybrid vector beam (HVB) propagating through rubidium atomic vapor. First, the HVB collapses into filaments located at positions with linear polarization. As propagation distance in atomic vapor increases, the locations of the filaments switch from positions with linear polarization to those with circular polarization. In this process, the absorption of the medium plays an important role. Results indicate that the absorption can be used as a degree of freedom to modulate the filamentation. Furthermore, by analyzing the polarization angle of an elliptically polarized position on the transverse plane of the HVB, we demonstrate the evolution of polarization distribution of HVB during propagation. Such results could have application in manipulating other structured beams and could be potentially applied to realize optical switches or logic for information processing.
Vector beams with spatially variant polarization have attracted much attention in recent years, with potential applications in both classical optics and quantum optics. In this work, we study a polarization selection of spatial intensity distribution by utilizing a hybridly polarized beam as a coupling beam and a circularly polarized beam as a probe beam in Rb87 atom vapor. We experimentally observe that the spatial intensity distribution of the probe beam after passing through atoms can be modulated by the hybridly polarized beam due to the optical pumping effect. Then, the information loaded in the probe beam can be designedly filtrated by an atomic system with a high extinction ratio. A detailed process of the optical pumping effect in our configurations and the corresponding absorption spectra are presented to interpret our experimental results, which can be used for the spatial optical information locally extracted based on an atomic system, which has potential applications in quantum communication and computation.
Space variant beams are of great importance for a variety of applications that have emerged in recent years. As such, manipulation of their degrees of freedom is highly desired. Here, we study the general interaction of space variant beams with a magnetically influenced Rb medium exploiting the atoms versatile properties in terms of frequency and intensity dependent circular dichroism and circular birefringence. We present the particular cases of radially polarized and hybrid polarized beams where the control of the polarization states is demonstrated experimentally. Moreover, we show that such an atomic system can be used as a tunable analyzer for space variant beams. Finally, exploiting the non-linear properties of Rb vapor, we show that we can control the circular birefringence all optically, and thus modulate the polarization of the radial polarized beam.
Vector beams with spatially varying polarization distribution in the wavefront plane have received increasing attention in recent years. The manipulation of vector beams both in intensity and polarization distributions is highly desired and under development. In this work, we study the transmission property of vector beams through warm rubidium vapor and realize controllable transmission of vector beams based on atomic dichroism. By utilizing the linearly polarized beam and vector beams as the pump and probe beams in a pump–probe configuration, a spatially-dependent dichroism can be obtained, which leads to spatially varied absorption of the probe beam. The controllable intensity distribution of the probe beam, as a two-petal pattern, can rotate with the variation of the pump beam's polarization states. We experimentally demonstrate the mechanism of dichroism with linear polarization light and provide an explanation based on the optical pumping effect. Alternatively, the varying trend of the probe beam's intensity is also interpreted by utilizing the Jones matrix. Our results are thus beneficial for providing potential applications in optical manipulation in atomic ensembles.
Space variant beams are of great importance as a variety of applications have emerged in recent years. As such, manipulation of their degrees of freedom is highly desired. Here, by exploiting the circular dichroism and circular birefringence in a Zeeman-shifted Rb medium, we study the general interaction of space variant beams with such a medium. We present two particular cases of radial polarization and hybrid polarization beams where the control of the polarization states is demonstrated experimentally. Moreover, we show that a Zeeman-shifted atomic system can be used as an analyzer for such space variant beams
We investigate the propagation of an optical vector vortex weakly interacting with a coherently prepared atomic medium (phaseonium) in a three-level ΛΛΛ configuration. The vector beam consists of vortex pulse pairs with right- and left-circular polarizations, corresponding to opposite spin angular momentum (SAM), and carrying opposite orbital angular momentum (OAM) charges ±l\pm l±l. We show that during the propagation of the vortex pairs, analytically obtained in the linear regime, the medium inherits the topology of the vortex pair, mapping the OAM onto a spatially structured atomic coherence. This mapping produces 2∣l∣−2|l|-2∣l∣−fold azimuthal transparency structures that reshape the beam intensity from a ring into a petal-like pattern. The OAM-structured atomic coherence induces a corresponding optical anisotropy within the medium, which feeds back into the propagating vector beam, resulting in optical spin-orbit coupling manifested as SAM exchange, rotation, and evolution of polarization textures. Depending on the initial ground-state population of the phaseonium, the polarization state evolves between left-circular, linear, and right-circular polarizations.
Abstract Vector vortex beams are widely concerned for their application prospects in various fields. Here we study the polarization rotation of hybrid-order vector vortex beam (HVVB) in hot atomic vapor both theoretically and experimentally. In this work, the HVVB is experimentally generated by combining two q-plates with a polarization beam splitter, and this method is verified by analyzing Jones vector based on the orthogonal circular polarization basis. We have experimentally investigated the polarization rotation of HVVB during the propagation in free space and atomic media. In free space, the polarization rotation characterized by rotation of horizontal components of the beams, has a limitation due to the effect of Gouy phase. In contrast, the polarization rotation angle in atomic media can break through this limitation due to the non-linearity and can be controlled by adjusting the relevant atomic parameters. The experimental results can be simulated by the theoretical model about cross-phase modulation of vector beams in a two-level atomic system.