Electromagnetically-induced transparency in Doppler-broadened five-level systems

We investigate the steady optical response of a coherently driven five-level M-type atomic system in three different situations. When all three coupling fields have the same zero detuning, we just find one deep transparency window accompanied by a steep normal dispersion in the probe absorption and dispersion spectra. When two coupling fields are detuned from the relevant transitions to the same extent, however, a second deep transparency window may be observed in the presence of a narrow absorption line of linewidth ∼ 50 kHz. In this case, two single-photon far-detuned transitions can be replaced by a two-photon resonant transition, so the five-level M system in fact reduces into a four-level quasi-Λ system. Finally, we note that no deep transparency windows and no narrow absorption lines can be found when all three coupling fields have unequal detunings.

Quantum interference effects in a multi-driven transition Fg = 3 ↔ Fe = 2

The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with a (near-)resonant chaotic (amplitude-phase fluctuating, Gaussian-Markovian) coupling field is studied theoretically. The Fourier transform of the steady-state EIT spectrum, which determines a nonstationary probe absorption, is also considered. This quantity equals the average diagonal element of the (reduced) evolution operator of the coupled transition (the evolution function). The exact solution in the form of a continued fraction is obtained and used to perform numerical calculations. Moreover, a number of approximate analytical results are obtained, which, together with the results of previous publications, describe the EIT and the evolution function in all possible regimes. In particular, in the constructive-interference case the EIT increases with the coupling-field bandwidth ν at sufficiently small ν. For a strong field, the maximum of the transparency as a function of ν is less than that for a monochromatic field of the same average intensity. In contrast, for a weak field, there is a range of ν values, where the field fluctuations do not affect the EIT. The latter result is shown to hold for a broad class of stochastic fields.

Transfer and conversion of images between different wavelengths or polarization has significant applications in optical communication and quantum information processing. We demonstrated the transfer of images based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a rubidium vapor cell. In experiments, a 2D image generated by a spatial light modulator is used as a coupling field, and a plane wave served as a signal field. We found that the image carried by coupling field could be transferred to that carried by signal field, and the spatial patterns of transferred image are much better than that of the initial image. It also could be much smaller than that determined by the diffraction limit of the optical system. We also studied the subdiffraction propagation for the transferred image. Our results may have applications in quantum interference lithography and coherent Raman spectroscopy.

The behavior of multilevel atomic ensembles (e.g., alkali-metal atoms) can be influenced significantly by the intensity of a driving field (or controlling/coupling field). The phase coherence between two transition pathways driven by a probe light and a driving field can lead to the effect known as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In EIT, the probe light can pass through a three-level alkali-metal atomic vapor without absorption or reflection when two coherent resonances (transition pathways driven by the driving and probe fields) are present and the linewidths of the transparency windows are sufficiently narrow. The optical characteristics of atomic systems can also be affected by the Doppler broadening of the absorption profile in a spectroscope. Our analysis indicates that both broadenings (related to the transitions excited by the driving and probe fields) can be expanded, leading to an increase in the transmittance and reflectance broadenings when a coupling field with adaptive strength is applied; the corresponding temperature would, thus, be implemented and readable. We show that the most suitable preparation for temperature sensing via an EIT vapor is to provide 80 times the spontaneous decay rate (SDR) of the excited atomic levels. This configuration results in reflectance and transmittance values that range between zero and one and cover a temperature range of 0 K to 600 K. As an example, we demonstrate the integration of specialized coating technologies with EIT ensembles for temperature sensing in the range of dozens of kelvins at and above room temperature. A key advantage of this temperature-sensing system is its ability to use adaptive resonant visible light as the probe field. This novel approach may find applications in providing unprecedented levels of precision and control in temperature sensing for coating processes and in the design of other photonic or optical devices. It can also be used to determine the temperature-dependent behavior of the specific heat of alkali-metal solids and gases (including the latent heats of vaporization or sublimation of alkali-metal solids) through the reflection and transmission spectra of the vaporized EIT atomic vapors.

We present a theoretical investigation into the transfer of fractional orbital angular momentum (FOAM) in a five-level atomic system and study its interference with a Gaussian field of the same frequency. Through simulations and analysis, we demonstrate that the number of doughnuts in the superposition field remains consistent with that of the FOAM field, meaning the persistent presence of the doughnut-shaped defect. We also observe significant alterations in both spatial intensity distributions and the intensity of the superposition field by increasing the intensity of the control field, and its spatial intensity distributions more clearly exhibit the characteristic of uneven spatial distribution of FOAM vortex light. Interestingly, the intensity distributions within the inner ring of the superimposed field display greater unevenness compared to the outer ring. Additionally, the phase distributions of the superposition field resulting from the interference between the Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) field and the Gaussian field are examined, revealing irregular period distributions consistent with those observed in the FOAM vortex field. These findings provide theoretical support for the propagation and manipulation of FOAM vortex beams in atomic systems, offering potential implications for applications involving fractional orbital angular momentum in atomic systems and enhancing information transmission capacity.

We study electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a room-temperature cesium vapor cell using wavelength-modulated probe laser light. In the utilized cascade level scheme, the probe laser drives the lower transition 6S(F = 4) → 6P (F’ = 5), while the coupling laser drives the Rydberg transition 6P → 57S. The probe laser has a fixed average frequency and is modulated at a frequency of a few kHz, with a variable modulation amplitude in the range of tens of MHz. The probe transmission is measured as a function of the detuning of the coupling laser from the Rydberg resonance. The first-harmonic demodulated EIT signal has two peaks that are, in the case of large modulation amplitude, separated by the peak-to-peak modulation amplitude of the probe laser times a scaling factor , where and are the probe- and coupling-laser wavelengths. The scaling factor is due to Doppler shifts in the EIT geometry. Second-harmonic demodulated EIT signals, obtained with small modulation amplitudes, yield spectral lines that are much narrower than corresponding lines in the modulation-free EIT spectra. The resultant spectroscopic resolution enhancement is conducive to improved measurements of radio-frequency (RF) fields based on Rydberg-atom EIT, an approach in which the response of Rydberg atoms to RF fields is exploited to characterize RF fields. Here, we employ wavelength modulation spectroscopy to reduce the uncertainty of atom-based frequency and field measurement of an RF field in the VHF radio band.

The propagation of a probe field through a four-level Y-type atomic system is described in the presence of two additional coherent radiation fields, namely, the control field and the coupling field. An expression for the probe response is derived analytically from the optical Bloch equations under steady state condition to study the absorptive properties of the system under probe field propagation through an ensemble of stationary atoms as well as in a Doppler broadened atomic vapor medium. The most striking result is the conversion of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) into electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) as we start switching from weak probe regime to strong probe regime. The dependence of this conversion on residual Doppler averaging due to wavelength mismatch is also shown by choosing the coupling transition as a Rydberg transition.

M-type atomic basic cell as a low intensity long wavelength infrared photodetector

We propose a method to controllably suppress the effect of the four-wave mixing caused by the coupling of the strong control optical field to both optical transitions in the system under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). At sufficiently high atomic density, this process leads to amplification of a weak optical signal field, that is detrimental for the fidelity of any EIT-based quantum information applications. Here we show that an additional absorption resonance centred around the Stokes field frequency, generated in such a four-wave mixing process, may efficiently suppress the unwanted probe amplification without affecting properties of the EIT interaction. We discuss the possibility of creating such tunable absorption using two-photon Raman absorption resonances in the other Rb isotope, and present some preliminary experimental results.

Following our previous brief report [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 173003 (2002)], we report here a detailed study of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and dark fluorescence in a cascade three-level diatomic lithium system using optical-optical double resonance (OODR) spectroscopy for both resonance and off resonance coupling. When a strong coupling laser couples the intermediate state $A\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Sigma}_{u}^{+}(v=13,J=14)$ to the upper state $G\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Pi}_{g}(v=11,J=14)$ of $^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{2}$, the fluorescence from both $A\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Sigma}_{u}^{+}$ and $G\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Pi}_{g}$ states was drastically reduced as the weak probe laser was tuned through the resonance transition between the ground state $X\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Sigma}_{g}^{+}(v=4,J=15)$ and the excited state $A\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Sigma}_{u}^{+}(v=13,J=14)$. The strong coupling laser makes an optically thick medium transparent for the probe transition. In addition, the fact that fluorescence from the upper state $G\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{1}\ensuremath{\Pi}_{g}(v=11,J=14)$ was also dark when both lasers were tuned at resonance implies that the molecules were trapped in the ground state. We used density matrix methods to simulate the response of an open molecular three-level system to the action of a strong coupling field and a weak probe field. The analytical solutions were obtained under the steady-state condition. We have incorporated the magnetic sublevel $(M)$ degeneracy of the rotational levels in the line shape analysis and report $\ensuremath{\mid}M\ensuremath{\mid}$ dependent line shape splitting. Our theoretical calculations are in excellent agreement with the observed fluorescence spectra. We show that the coherence is remarkably preserved even when the coupling field was detuned far from the resonance.

We study the steady optical response of a five-level atomic system in the parametric region where resonant two-photon transitions are much stronger than far-detuned single-photon transitions. We find that the concurrent absorption of two weak probe fields can be well suppressed in a narrow spectral region to attain electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) via quantum destructive interference between different two-photon transition pathways. To gain a deeper insight into relevant physics, we adiabatically reduce this five-level system with trivial single-photon transitions into a three-level system with vanishing single-photon transitions by deriving an effective Hamiltonian. The two systems have almost the same two-photon absorption spectra exhibiting typical EIT features but are a little different in fine details. This means that most characteristics of two-photon quantum destructive interference are reserved after the adiabatic elimination approximation. In addition, we verify by numerical calculations that the two-photon EIT spectra are insensitive to the dipole-dipole interaction of cold Rydberg atoms when the uppermost level has a high principle quantum number.

The linear optical properties in quantum dots under a single coupling field

A frequency-hopping communication receiver based on Rydberg atoms, whose carrier frequency changes in accordance with a predetermined sequence, is proposed for what we believe to be the first time and experimentally verified. Based on the coherent population trapping (CPT) effect of atoms, a five-level system is built under the assumption of a constant laser wavelength, where the carrier is the resonance band corresponding to different separated quantum states. Pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) and complex image signals undergo keying modulation to achieve frequency-domain hopping reception. In the experiment, a dynamic range of 62 dB is demonstrated. The digital transmission with a data rate of 1 Mbps is performed reliably, within a tunable bandwidth of 50 MHz, an instantaneous bandwidth of 700 kHz and a max hopping rate of 20000 hop/s. The proposed atom-based frequency-hopping receiver is suitable for secure communications, satellite uplinks, quantum cryptography, and high-precision scientific research.

In this paper we study the coherent transient property of a &Lambda;-three-level system (&Omega;_<i>d</i> = 0) and a quasi- &Lambda; -four-level system (&Omega;_<i>d</i>&gt;0). Optical switching of the probe field can be achieved by applying a pulsed coupling field or rf field. In &Lambda; -shaped three-level system, when the coupling field was switched on, there is a almost total transparency of the probe field and the time required for the absorption changing from 90% to 10% of the maximum absorption is 2.9_&Gamma;0 (_&Gamma;0 is spontaneous emission lifetime). When the coupling field was switched off, there is an initial increase of the probe field absorption and then gradually evolves to the maximum of absorption of the two-level absorption, the time required for the absorption of the system changing from 10% to 90% is 4.2_&Gamma;0. In four-level system, where rf driving field is used as switching field, to achieve the same depth of the optical switching, the time of the optical switching is 2.5_&Gamma;0 and 6.1_&Gamma;0, respectively. The results show that with the same depth of the optical switching, the switch-on time of the four-level system is shorter than that of the three-level system, while the switch-off time of the four-level system is longer. The depth of the optical switching of the four-level system was much larger than that of the three-level system, where the depth of the optical switching of the latter is merely 14.8% of that of the former. The speed of optical switching of the two systems can be increased by the increase of Rabi frequency of coupling field or rf field.