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Journal of Physics Photonics

Manipulating optical absorption and polarization using microwave control in an atomic vapor

A Tretiakov, C. A. Potts, B Lu, J. P. Davis, Lindsay J. LeBlanc

Published Feb 19, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The multiplicity of atomic states (and the transitions between them) offer an innate, coherent platform through which microwave and optical fields effectively interact. In an atomic vapor near room temperature, we combine optical and microwave fields to generate a macroscopic internal angular momentum among the atoms—an atomic polarization—at an arbitrary angle with respect to the optical (laser) beam. This geometric freedom enables microwave control over photonic degrees of freedom, which we use in two demonstrations: using microwave-assisted optical pumping, we can rotate linear polarization through several degrees, and we can control the absorption for specific transitions and polarizations, which has applications for microwave-to-optical transduction.

DOI
10.1088/2515-7647/ad2ac8

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Abstract The multiplicity of atomic states (and the transitions between them) offer an innate, coherent platform through which microwave and optical fields effectively interact. In an atomic vapor near room temperature, we combine optical and microwave fields to generate a macroscopic internal angular momentum among the atoms—an atomic polarization—at an arbitrary angle with respect to the optical (laser) beam. This geometric freedom enables microwave control over photonic degrees of freedom, which we use in two demonstrations: using microwave-assisted optical pumping, we can rotate linear polarization through several degrees, and we can control the absorption for specific transitions and polarizations, which has applications for microwave-to-optical transduction.
Polarized atomic ensembles play a crucial role in precision measurements. We demonstrate a novel method of creating atomic polarization in an alkali vapor in a continuous-wave regime. The method relies on a combination of optical pumping by a laser beam and microwave transitions due to a cavity-enhanced magnetic field. With this approach, atomic internal angular momentum can be oriented along a static magnetic field at an arbitrary angle with respect to the laser beam. Furthermore, the atomic polarization depends on the microwave parameters, which can be used for microwave-to-optical transduction and microwave-controlled nonlinear magneto-optical rotation.
Information transfer between a microwave field and light, also known as microwave-to optical transduction, is a key area of research in quantum communication technology aimed at developing an interface between the superconducting processing devices operating at microwave frequencies and optical photons used for transferring quantum information over distance. Atomic vapors offer a good platform for such interfaces since they naturally support transitions at microwave and optical frequencies. In this work, we explored microwave-to-optical transduction in rubidium ensembles. We proposed a transduction method based on microwave-optical double resonance, where we can control the ensemble optical properties via non-linear interactions with a microwave magnetic field. With this method, we demonstrate the transduction of an audio signal from frequency-modulated and amplitude-modulated microwave fields to optical intensity modulation. We also present a protocol for engineering atomic spin polarization with microwave-assisted optical pumping and consider its applications for polarization-selective frequency conversion and microwave-controlled optical rotation.
Summary form only given. Quantum coherence phenomena offer a powerful method of controlling the optical properties of an atomic vapor, such as the absorption and refractive index. We demonstrate the use of quantum coherence to induce controllable birefringence in an atomic vapor and to thereby provide complete and efficient control over the polarization state of a probe laser beam propagating through the vapor. Quantum coherence has been previously observed to produce small polarization rotations, but these experiments suffered from significant absorption loss and produced rotations of at most a few degrees. Our experiments demonstrate the ability to induce linear or circular birefringence in an initially isotropic system that can be used to change the polarization state of a probe beam from linear to any desired polarization state with a total energy throughput greater than 97%.
Magnetic-free nonreciprocal optical devices have attracted great attention in recent years. Here, we investigated the magnetic-free polarization rotation of light in an atom vapor cell. Two mechanisms of magnetic-free nonreciprocity have been realized in ensembles of hot atoms, including electromagnetically induced transparency and optically-induced magnetization. For a linearly polarized input probe light, a rotation angle up to 86.4° has been realized with external control and pump laser powers of 10 mW and is mainly attributed to the optically-induced magnetization effect. Our demonstration offers a new approach to realize nonreciprocal devices, which can be applied to solid-state atom ensembles and may be useful in photonic integrated circuits.
Advances in the coherent control of Rydberg atoms have led to an explosion in their use in a wide range of topics, including quantum computation, simulation, sensing, and networking. More specifically, Rydberg-coupled ensembles of atoms interfaced with a single mode of light have enabled studies of fundamental light-matter interactions at the single-photon level and have emerged as a promising platform to realize scalable quantum networking nodes. In the first part of this thesis, we utilize Rydberg blockade to generate large ensembles that host a single Rydberg excitation and use the collective state as a resource to efficiently generate single photons. We further investigate the shelving of the collective Rydberg excitations to the ground-state manifold, where we observe an order of magnitude increase in the coherence time of the excitation. In the latter half of the thesis, we use near-resonant microwave fields to generate microwave-dressed Rydberg states, where we utilize the degrees of freedom of the microwave field to tune the strength, form, and angular dependence of the dipole-dipole interactions. To this end, we develop a robust and highly tunable microwave polarization control system. We use a set of in-vacuum electrodes as microwave antennas. We measure the microwave polarizations produced by each source at the positions of the atoms using a Rydberg EIT-based polarimetry technique. By characterizing the three imperfect sources, we find the control settings necessary to produce \sigma_-, \pi, and \sigma_+ polarized microwaves with >99 % fidelity. We extend our purification techniques to frequencies away from Rydberg resonances by utilizing an auxiliary microwave field, generating two-photon microwave resonances. The high-fidelity microwave polarizations are used to resonantly admix opposite-parity Rydberg states, generating dressed states with dipole-dipole interactions that are longer range and stronger than the bare van der Waals interactions. To characterize the strength of the interactions, we measure the photon-number statistics of the light generated by the ensemble of atoms. By varying the cloud length relative to the blockade radii, we demonstrate a clear enhancement of the interaction strength due to microwave dressing. Our platform enables further engineering of interactions by exploiting the polarization and frequency degrees of freedom of the microwave fields, opening pathways for new quantum control strategies in many different experimental platforms.
The two-dimensional designer metasurfaces have been established as a new class of versatile and powerful optical solution for controlling the classical light in various degrees of freedom such as phase, amplitudes, polarization and angular momentum. Expanding the control capability of metasurface from classical light to quantum state of single photons is an emerging direction that can lead to a new regime of light-matter interaction and applications for quantum technology. In this talk, we will present our proposal and experimental demonstration of manipulating photonic quantum states enabled by an unprecedented design of metasurface. We show the control over the quantum states and the effective quantum interaction between single photons, which is impossible by traditional optics. Our work greatly empowers the operations and functionalities of optical quantum technologies.