Light transmission laws in electromagnetically induced transparency

Norbert Leinfellner, Arno Huss, Stanislav B. Baluschev +4 more

We report on first measurements of the dependence of the transmission of resonant polarized light on the optical length in a continuous wave electromagnetically induced transparency regime. The law of light propagation is found to be exponential, with an absorption coefficient smaller compared to its value in the non-transparent case. This result is explained by a transient character of the absorption and the presence of losses of atomic population to non-observable magnetic sublevels of the ground state.

A. Kasapi, G. Y. Yin, Manoj Kumar Jain +2 more

Stephen E. Harris

Mason Klein, Michael Hohensee, Yanhong Xiao +3 more

We show how slow-light pulse delays in realistic electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) media can be determined directly from static transmission spectra. Using only the measured EIT linewidth and off-resonant transmission, the absolute delay of a slow-light pulse in an optically thick, power-broadened medium can be simply and accurately determined, while capturing more complex optical pumping behavior.

Tao Pang

Toshihiro Nakanishi, Masao Kitano

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has been extensively investigated in atomic systems, to control transmission through optical components and the velocities of ``slow light'' packets. The authors realize EIT using a metamaterial that turns transparent with the incidence of an auxiliary electromagnetic wave, in the same manner as from the original, atomic EIT effect. This approach could lead to applications including the storage of electromagnetic waves (the ultimate slowing of light) across a wide frequency range for optical computing.