Optical switching property of electromagnetically induced transparency in a Λ system

Comparison of steady and transient optical responses between a four-level Tripod system and a three-level Lambda system

Selective reflection (SR) from the interface between transparent medium and dilute vapour is caused by the atomic vapor near the interface. The sub-Doppler structure in SR is due to the deexcitation caused by the collision between atomic vapor and the wall. Beacuse the interaction region between atomic vapor and incident light is on the order of a few hundred nanometers, SR has low optical loss and high spatial resolution. The experimental device of SR is simple. Because of the above characteristics, the SR has been widely studied and applied. The nonlinear SR spectrum of quasi lambda-type four-level system at gas-solid interface is studied theoretically in this paper. By sloving the density matrix equations, the approximate analytic solution of the matrix element associated with the probe field is obtained at normal incidence when the intensity of the probe field is very weak. The effect of the Rabi frequency, the detuning of the signal field and the detuning of the coupling field on the lineshape are analyzed by numerical simulation, respectively. Three peaks and two transparent windows appear in SR spectrum when the detuning of coupling field and signal field are both zero. The middle peak is generated due to the participation of signal field, and the other two peaks are caused by the other two fields. The linewidth and the amplitude of the middle peak can be changed by varying the Rabi frequency of signal field, and the other two peaks have little effect on the Rabi frequency of signal field. The signal generated due to the participation of signal field can be transformed from peak to transparent window when the detuning value of the signal field is equal to the Rabi frequency of coupling field. When the detuning value of the signal field is not equal to the Rabi frequency of coupling field, a dispersion-like signal between reflection peak and transparent window is generated due to the participation of signal field. The position of peak and transparent window can be manipulated by controlling the detuning value of the coupling field. When the detuning value of coupling field decreases from zero, three peaks all shift to red detuning direction. When the detuning value of coupling field is blue-detuned and increases, three peaks all shift to blue detuning direction. The numerical results can be explained by using the various electric transition pathways and dressed state theory. This study is helpful in investigating quantum coherence and dynamic process of atoms at gas-solid interface.

This paper studies the narrow spectral feature appearing in a four-level system coupled by two strong coherent fields and probed by a weak laser field. The linewidth is examined as a function of the Rabi frequencies of coupling fields, and the result is explained by using the dressed-state formalism.

Steady-State Doppler-Broadened IR–RF Lineshape Theory and Enhancement of Refractive Index in a Three-Level System

We report the lifetime of spontaneous parametric four wave mixing (SP-FWM) and multiorder fluorescence in two-, three-, and four-level systems of negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV−) in diamond. The lifetime of SP-FWM is enhanced at high power by the induced dark state from coupling fields. The reduction and enhancement in fluorescence lifetime are attributed to destructive and constructive quantum interference, respectively. The quantum interference is induced by interaction among different decay pathways of spontaneous emission by closely spaced energy levels, which can be controlled by dipole–dipole interaction and the mutual orientations of dipole moments. The lifetime is observed to be longer in two-level as compared to three-level and four-level systems. The different measured lifetimes suggest the sensitivity of these NV systems to quantum interference and the dressing effect. These outcomes may provide new insights in development of all-optical communication devices and quantum storage on photonic chips.

An analysis of Rayleigh backscattering (RBS) and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in strongly pumped ytterbium fiber amplifiers is presented. The ytterbium (three-level) system is compared with four-level systems that were studied previously. Both approximate expressions and exact numerical solutions for ASE and RBS as well as for the amplifier noise figure are examined. The results suggest that ASE is apparently stronger in three-level systems, which implies a preferable pumping strategy.

We study electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of a probe field in a Doppler- broadened five-level K-type atomic system driven by three strong laser (coupling) fields. Effect of wave-vector mismatch occurring when the coupling field frequency is higher than that of the probe field frequency (λc < λp) are considered. Under the influence of the coherent coupling fields, the steady-state linear susceptibility of the probe laser shows that the system can have single or double or triple EIT windows depending on the amplitude and detuning of the coupling fields.

In this work we present a theoretical frame work to identify the role and the nature of interference between Autler-Townes (AT) peaks (or dressed states) in generic multi-level system. The destructive interference between the AT peaks, gives rise to sharp transparency window known as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In the three-level system, the two AT peaks interferes pair-wise with each other, almost similar to the two-slit interference. In the four-level system, the interference between the three AT peaks is also pair-wise analogous to three-slit interference but has a bit more complicated nature of interference. However, in many practical situations in atomic systems only the simple form of interference similar to three-level system dominates. In the three-level system, the nature of interference (i.e. constructive, destructive or zero/no interference) between the two AT peaks is purely determined by the natural decay rate of the states coupled by the control laser. However, in four-level system the nature of interference between the two extreme AT peaks can be tuned from constructive to destructive by tuning the power of the control laser.

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.

We theoretically study the coherent interaction of a tripod-type atomic system with three laser fields, i.e., one probe and two coupling, or two probe and one coupling field. Our analytical and numerical results show that, when all three fields are on two-photon resonance, in addition to the Rabi frequencies of the coupling fields, the probe group velocities also depend on the spontaneous decay rates and the initial population distribution. So we can manipulate the probe pulses to achieve controllable ultraslow group velocities by preparing different initial atomic states. With an incoherent pump field applied, a narrow transparent window accompanied by abnormal dispersion may occur in the probe absorption spectrum, which then allows us to switch a probe pulse from ultraslow to superluminal propagation.

Three and four electromagnetically induced transparency windows generate the multi-channel four-wave mixing (FWM) process are observed in a four-level atomic system. The transmission of the probe field and the reflection of the FWM are investigated in the modulated moving photonic band gap structures which are caused by the coupling fields with a relative small detuning offset when scanning detuning frequency of the probe field and the dressing field, respectively. The experimental results show that the more channels spectrum signal of the FWM process can be modulated and the generated multi-channel can be further modulated by adding a dressing field. We have also explained theoretically these experimental results which may have applications in the design of photonic crystal and optical signal amplifiers.

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.

A scheme for large enhancement of the third-order nonlinearity in a four-level system with double dark resonances is proposed. We obtain an analytical expression for the linear susceptibility and nonlinear susceptibility of a weak probe field and show that the properties of double electromagnetically induced transparency and the Kerr nonlinearity can be modified significantly by changing the ratio of the two coupling fields. A physical understanding of our numerical results using the dressed-state approach is presented. The obtained large nonlinearity with vanishing absorption can be used to generate optical solitons, polarization phase gates and optical Kerr shutters.

Running-wave solutions to three systems of partial differential equations describing wave propagation in atomic media in the kinetic limit have been obtained. Those systems include approximations to (i) standard two-level Maxwell–Bloch equations; (ii) equations describing processes with saturated absorption in three-level systems and (iii) equations describing processes with reversed saturation in four-level systems. It has been shown that in all three cases kink-like solitary waves can emerge if the dynamical equation for the intensity includes a linear contribution to the Lambert–Beer law. Those solitary waves can propagate with either sub- or superluminal velocity of the edge of the kink, and in a direction which can be either the same as or opposite to that of the carrier wave. In addition, simple qualitative information about the behaviour of waves near the wavefronts has been obtained.

Optical properties of four level medium via spontaneously generated coherence