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arXiv:quant-ph/0007004 · Physical Review Letters

Phase Control of Photoabsorption in Optically Dense Media

David Petrosyan, P. Lambropoulos

Published Aug 28, 2000• 24 citations
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Abstract

We present a self-consistent theory, as well as an illustrative application to a realistic system, of phase control of photoabsorption in an optically dense medium. We demonstrate that, when propagation effects are taken into consideration, the impact on phase control is significant. Independent of the value of the initial phase difference between the two fields, over a short scaled distance of propagation, the medium tends to settle the relative phase so that it cancels the atomic excitation. In addition, we find some rather unusual behavior for an optically thin layer.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.85.1843

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We present a self-consistent theory, as well as an illustrative application to a realistic system, of phase control of photoabsorption in an optically dense medium. We demonstrate that, when propagation effects are taken into consideration, the impact on phase control is significant. Independent of the value of the initial phase difference between the two fields, over a short scaled distance of propagation, the medium tends to settle the relative phase so that it cancels the atomic excitation. In addition, we find some rather unusual behavior for an optically thin layer.
We present a self-consistent theory, as well as analytical and numerical results, for the three-photon--one-photon phase control of resonantly enhanced photoionization in an optically dense medium of xenon gas. We show that for an optically thick medium, the standard phase-control technique has a rather limited application since, independently of the initial relative phase between the two fields, over a very short scaled distance of propagation the medium tends to settle such a relative phase that exactly cancels the atomic excitation. Rather unusual results for an optically thin layer of atoms are also found.
We present a self-consistent theory and analytical results for the three-photon-one-photon coherent control of ionization in an optically dense autoionizing medium. We show that for an optically thick medium, over a short scaled propagation distance, the phase and amplitude of the harmonic field settle to values that are fully determined by the atomic and fundamental field parameters and are completely independent of the initial relative phase between the two fields, thus preventing efficient phase control of the autoionization and its products. Control of the autoionization and the branching ratio of its products is still feasible, however, through the variation of the detuning of the fundamental field from the atomic transition resonance.
We investigate ultrashort pulse propagation in a dense medium of two-level atoms. We numerically solve the coupled nonlinear Maxwell-Bloch equations by assuming that the fields are slowly varying in time only. We find that while intrinsic optical switching of the atomic inversion persists in extended media, self-phase-modulation effects, coherent energy transfer, and reflections can be large even for films that are only a small fraction of a wavelength thick. If the propagation distance is sufficiently large, a physical boundary that separates fully excited atoms from atoms in the ground state can be created within the medium. In turn, this leads to a rapid spatial modulation of the nonlinear polarization, and a deterioration of the intrinsic optical switching mechanism. We then show that, although the slowly varying envelope approximation in space may be preempted by the fast longitudinal variation of the field and atomic variables, the mean-field approximation remains valid in the regime of ultrafast optical switching, provided the film thickness is sufficiently small such that the medium is nearly uniformly excited. These results are generated by utilization of our calculational method that fully accounts for the longitudinal dynamics of the fields, including reflections.
We show that four-wave mixing in optically dense media is very different than in an optically thin medium. In time-resolved degenerate four-wave mixing we experimentally observe ``negative'' time delay response, fast decay rates at short delay times, and broad shoulders at long delays. The observations are explained very well in terms of pulse propagation effects, and a theoretical framework is presented for the analysis of the nonlinear interaction. We treat both the incident and generated fields self-consistently, and solve for the interaction of short pulses with a resonantly absorbing medium. The implications for the extraction of relaxation rates from four-wave-mixing experiments involving ultrashort pulses in optically dense matter are discussed.
We present here a theoretical analysis of the propagation of a sequence of ultrashort pulses in an optically dense medium. The interaction is resonant and treated in the weak-field regime. Dispersion is dominant and induces important reshaping effects. We show that these effects depend crucially on the relative phase shift \ensuremath{\varphi} between the pulses. Compared to the case of a train of independent pulses (i.e., mutually incoherent), a pulse sequence with $\ensuremath{\varphi}=0$ is shown to be sensitive to dispersion for lower optical depths, whereas a pulse sequence with $\ensuremath{\varphi}=\ensuremath{\pi}$ is shown to be more robust.