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Frontiers in Physics

Observation of the Rotational Doppler Effect With Structured Beams in Atomic Vapor

Shuwei Qiu, Jinwen Wang, Xin Yang, Mingtao Cao, Shougang Zhang, Hong Gao, Fuli Li

Published Jan 3, 2022• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A vector beam with the spatial variation polarization has attracted keen interest and is progressively applied in quantum information, quantum communication, precision measurement, and so on. In this letter, the spectrum observation of the rotational Doppler effect based on the coherent interaction between atoms and structured light in an atomic vapor is realized. The geometric phase and polarization of the structured beam are generated and manipulated by using a flexible and efficacious combination optical elements, converting an initial linearly polarized Gaussian beam into a phase vortex beam or an asymmetric or symmetric vector beam. These three representative types of structured beam independently interact with atoms under a longitudinal magnetic field to explore the rotational Doppler shift associated with the topological charge. We find that the rotational Doppler broadening increases obviously with the topological charge of the asymmetric and symmetric vector beam. There is no rotational Doppler broadening observed from the spectrum of the phase vortex beam, although the topological charge, and spatial profile of the beam change. This study can be applied to estimate the rotational velocity of the atom-level or molecule-level objects, measure the intensity of magnetic fields and study the quantum coherence in atomic ensembles.

DOI
10.3389/fphy.2021.771260

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A vector beam with the spatial variation polarization has attracted keen interest and is progressively applied in quantum information, quantum communication, precision measurement, and so on. In this letter, the spectrum observation of the rotational Doppler effect based on the coherent interaction between atoms and structured light in an atomic vapor is realized. The geometric phase and polarization of the structured beam are generated and manipulated by using a flexible and efficacious combination optical elements, converting an initial linearly polarized Gaussian beam into a phase vortex beam or an asymmetric or symmetric vector beam. These three representative types of structured beam independently interact with atoms under a longitudinal magnetic field to explore the rotational Doppler shift associated with the topological charge. We find that the rotational Doppler broadening increases obviously with the topological charge of the asymmetric and symmetric vector beam. There is no rotational Doppler broadening observed from the spectrum of the phase vortex beam, although the topological charge, and spatial profile of the beam change. This study can be applied to estimate the rotational velocity of the atom-level or molecule-level objects, measure the intensity of magnetic fields and study the quantum coherence in atomic ensembles.
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Abstract The interaction between vector beams and atoms under a weak magnetic field could induce spatially dependent electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Based on such a coherence effect, we propose a method for manipulating vector beams carrying spiral varying phases in hot rubidium atoms. When a transverse magnetic field (TMF) is applied, the transparent regions of the transmitted beam are strongly depend on the beam’s polarization distribution. In addition to the intensity modulation, the alignment of the TMF is reflected in the rotation of the central symmetric transmission patterns. In theory, we discuss the physical mechanism of the spiral EIT region generated by the phase profile, and analyze the influence of system parameters on this coherent process. Our work confirms that introducing additional radial phases can also lead to spatially dependent EIT, which extends another degree of freedom to manipulate atomic polarization. This will provide potential applications in light field manipulation and multi-dimensional quantum storage.
We consider the optical rotation of the polarization of a linearly polarized probe field passing through an M-type atomic system by using the interaction between two vortex control fields and optical transitions. We investigate theoretically to generate the spatially dependent structured light with the atoms acting as a spatially varying circular birefringent medium. We show that the polarization and intensity distributions of the vector beam spatially vary by changing the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the vortex control field.
Abstract The interaction between light fields and three-level Λ-type atomic systems gives rise to abundant quantum coherence and interference, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, vacuum-induced transparency, and gain-doublet anomalous dispersion. Recent advances in atomic coherence have provided new insights into spin–orbit optics and the photonic spin Hall effect in asymmetric planar layered structures. Here, we investigate the spin symmetry breaking of the longitudinal shift of polarized vortex beams and analyze its dependence on the polarization states and incident angles. Numerical results demonstrate that this spin symmetry breaking behavior exhibits excellent robustness against variations in the topological charge and the Raman transition inverse lifetime γ (i.e. the ground-state coherence dephasing rate). The underlying physical mechanism is further clarified from the perspective of atomic coherent resonance. This work provides a feasible route for manipulating the spin–orbit interaction of structured light via quantum decoherence in planar layered structures.
A structured-light-based approach to magneto-optical rotation (MOR) magnetometry is proposed, in which magnetically induced polarization rotation is converted into a directly observable spatial displacement. A radially polarized Laguerre--Gaussian beam propagating through cold 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms in the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field experiences circular birefringence, which induces a relative phase shift between the σ+σ_+σ+​ and σ−σ_-σ−​ polarization components. This phase shift manifests itself as the angular rotation of a petal-shaped interference pattern, enabling the MOR angle to be determined directly from the spatial intensity distribution. Unlike conventional MOR detection techniques based on balanced polarimetry or Stokes-parameter reconstruction, the proposed method requires only a fixed-axis polarization projection and avoids computationally intensive polarization analysis. By translating polarization rotation into a topology-dependent spatial observable, the scheme enables direct and spatially resolved magnetic-field measurements. Furthermore, the use of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) allows low-loss operation while preserving high sensitivity. These characteristics make the proposed technique a promising platform for optical magnetometry and structured-light-based quantum sensing.