Dynamically modified radiative decay of V type atoms in a strongly driven microcavity

Kikuo Ujihara

Yu. P. Malakyan

The interaction between V-type atoms and a single mode of a microwave cavity is studied in the presence of a strong field driving the second transition of the atoms. With a monochromatic injected field, the ground and excited state populations are calculated analytically, and the dynamic suppression and enhancement of spontaneous emission into the cavity mode are demonstrated, which depend on the atom-driving field detuning and intracavity Rabi frequency, the latter being larger than the cavity damping rate. It is shown that the Autler-Townes doublet can be measured by monitoring the occupation of ground and excited states as a function of atom-cavity field detuning.

Yifu Zhu

Analytical expressions for the emission spectrum and intensity correlation functions are derived for a ssV-type three-level atom driven by two strong, resonant coherent fields. It is found that coherent mixing of the atomic states by the strong fields modifies the atomic decay dynamics, which results in dramatical narrowing of spectral features predicted by Narducci, Oppo, and Scully [Opt. Commun. 75, 111 (1990)].

D. P. Ziegler, David E. Weeks

Akiyoshi Takada, Kikuo Ujihara

Gunnar G. Bjork, Stanley Pau, Joseph M. Jacobson +1 more

Excitonic superradiance has been predicted to induce a rapid decay rate of coherently excited excitons in thin quantum wells and microspheres. In this paper we revisit this problem and derive the enhancement factor of the radiative decay due to superradiant effects. In a GaAs quantum well, the excitonic superradiant radiative decay can be roughly 320 times faster than the decay of a free electron-hole pair. The exciton decay rate depends strongly on the lateral size of the wave function when the size is smaller than the inverse of the wave vector of the emitted light. In a GaAs quantum well this corresponds to a distance of \ensuremath{\approxeq}365 \AA{}. Therefore, it is predicted that localization and elastic phonon scattering may lead to decay rates substantially smaller than that predicted for an ideal quantum well. It is also shown that if the quantum well is placed inside a microcavity, the decay rate can be enhanced even further since the cavity modifies the available density of radiation states in a way that matches the superradiant emission. It is predicted that in a matched dielectric cavity the decay rate can be enhanced by an additional factor of 100, but that inhomogeneous broadening may in practice limit the possible enhancement.