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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Atomic excitation by a pulse train I: two-level atoms

Lee C. Bradley

Published Jan 1, 1990• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An assembly of ground-state two-level atoms with a Maxwellian velocity distribution is considered to be illuminated by a near-resonant train of Gaussian pulses whose pulse separation is of the same order of magnitude as the natural decay time of the upper state by spontaneous emission. The equations of motion of the density matrix, including spontaneous decay, are numerically integrated over the duration of one pulse and are analytically integrated between pulses. In this way, the transition matrix is derived. The time evolution of the system is then followed by successive multiplications of the state vector by the transition matrix. Steady state is attained after a few pulses. Because the pulse train has side bands separated by the pulse repetition frequency, corresponding velocity groups are preferentially excited. The response (defined as the time-average spontaneous emission of the assembly) is found to be a quasi-sinusoidal function of the number of Rabi flops per pulse. Frequency modulation of the pulse train leads to smaller variation in the response and, consequently, to considerably higher response.

DOI
10.1364/oam.1990.tue5

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Physical Review A•Apr 1, 1980•10 citations
An assembly of ground-state two-level atoms with a Maxwellian velocity distribution is considered to be illuminated by a near-resonant train of Gaussian pulses whose pulse separation is of the same order of magnitude as the natural decay time of the upper state by spontaneous emission. The equations of motion of the density matrix, including spontaneous decay, are numerically integrated over the duration of one pulse and are analytically integrated between pulses. In this way, the transition matrix is derived. The time evolution of the system is then followed by successive multiplications of the state vector by the transition matrix. Steady state is attained after a few pulses. Because the pulse train has side bands separated by the pulse repetition frequency, corresponding velocity groups are preferentially excited. The response (defined as the time-average spontaneous emission of the assembly) is found to be a quasi-sinusoidal function of the number of Rabi flops per pulse. Frequency modulation of the pulse train leads to smaller variation in the response and, consequently, to considerably higher response.
A general, analytic theory is presented of the excitation of a two-level atom by a series of short optical laser pulses. The atom is assumed to be isolated (collisionless) with radiative decay from upper to lower state at rate γ. The laser pulses are assumed to have a duration tp such that γtp ≪ 1 (the transient regime), and the spacing between pulses tr is such that tr ≫ tp. In this regime the atomic density matrix is calculated as a function of time during each optical pulse. An analytic expression for the atomic state (Bloch vector) after n optical pulses is also derived. For large n the atomic state converges to a repeating (steady state) cycle of pump excitation followed by radiative decay. The excited-state population in the steady state can be large but only if the spacing between pulses tr is small so that γtr ≲ 0.5. These results indicate that lasers that produce trains of pulses, such as mode-locked conventional lasers and free-electron lasers, can be effective in optical pumping of atoms.
We present an analytical expression for the response of a two-level atom to a frequency-modulated optically coherent pulse train. The optical beam has sinusoidal frequency modulation and is chopped to have a square-wave envelope. We assume that the laser pulses are short compared with the atomic-decay time, the pulse-repetition time, and the modulation period. With this short-pulse assumption we are able to use a method similar to Temkin’s [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B10, 830–839 (1993)] and solve the optical Bloch equations in closed form.
Compared to a hypothetical two-level atom, the sodium atom has a more complex structure with both Zeeman and hyperfine levels. When an assembly of such atoms is illuminated by a pulse train, the excitation is made more complex by the phenomenon of optical pumping. It is well known that pro longed excitation of the 2S1/2 - 2P3/2 transition by circularly polarized light leads to a steady state in which the atoms oscillate exclusively between the F = 2, MF = 2 ground level and the F = 3, MF = 3 excited level. The pumping is comparatively slow, so the temporal behavior is important, and the steady state may not be attained in practice. The dynamics of this process will be explained.
We study the dynamics of three-level $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-type atoms driven by a coherent train of short, nonoverlapping laser pulses. We derive analytical nonperturbative expressions for the density matrix by approximating the pulses by a $\ensuremath{\delta}$ function. We demonstrate that, depending on the train parameters, several scenarios of system dynamics can be realized. We show the possibility of driving Raman transitions between the two ground states of the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ system, avoiding populating excited states by using pulses with effective area equal to $2\ensuremath{\pi}$. The number of $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses needed to transfer the entire population from one ground state to another depends on the ratio between the Rabi frequencies of two allowed transitions. In the case of equal Rabi frequencies, the system can be transferred from one ground state to another with a single $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse. When the total pulse area differs from $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ and the two-photon resonance condition is fulfilled, the system evolves into a ``dark'' state and becomes transparent to subsequent pulses. The third possible scenario is the quasi-steady-state regime when neither the total single-pulse area is equal to $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ nor is the two-photon resonance condition fulfilled. In this regime the radiative-decay-induced drop in the population following a given pulse is fully restored by the subsequent pulse. We derive an analytical expression for the density matrix in the quasi-steady-state regime. We analyze the dependence of the postpulse excited-state population in the quasi-steady-state regime on the train parameters. We find the optimal values for the train parameters corresponding to the maximum of the excited-state population. The maximum of the excited-state population in the steady-state regime is reached at an effective single-pulse area equal to $\ensuremath{\pi}$ and is equal to 2/32/32/3 in the limiting case when its radiative lifetime is much shorter than the pulse repetition period.
This paper discussed the solution of the Bloch equations of a two-level atom resonantly interacting with laser pulse trains in detail. In terms of the solution, we calculate the radiation spectrum of the two-level atom excited by the laser pulse trains and obtain the following conclusions: (1) for the atoms satisfying the condition K1/K = 1 (such as gas atoms broadened by spontaneous emission), the laser pulse trains are almost equivalent to a CW laser; (2) for the atoms K1/K《1, saying, some solid atoms like ruby, the radiation spectrum of the atom exhibits the multipeak structure induced by the strong interaction of the atom with the side frequency components of the laser pulse trains.
Interaction with a multimode quantized radiation field of an assembly of NNN two-level atoms contained in a small volume is considered for the special cases of (i) highly excited, (ii) weakly excited, and (iii) superradiant atomic assemblies, and solutions of equations of motion are obtained in closed form. For (i) and (ii) we show that, if the atomic assembly is in the Dicke state ∣r,m>|r,m>∣r,m>, the spontaneously emitted radiation is Lorentzian, and its spectral width and the numerical value of the Lamb shift are r+∣m∣r+|m|r+∣m∣ times that for a single excited atom. For (i) the sign of Lamb shift is opposite to that for (ii) and for a single excited atom. Change in the frequency shift gives chirping in the pulse radiation emitted spontaneously by an assembly of atoms. We obtain the reduced density operator for a single mode and for the complete spontaneous emitted radiation, and discuss its characteristic function, weight function in diagonal representation, coherence functions, and normalized variance. We find that the emitted radiation is chaotic if all atoms are excited or if the assembly is weakly excited and is in thermal equilibrium. For a superradiant assembly, the radiation is coherent; it is only amplitude coherent if the initial atomic density operator is nondiagonal. We also study stimulated emission and scattering for the cases (i) and (ii). For case (iii) these phenomena do not take place.