No Arabic abstract
We present a scheme for eliminating the optical diffraction of slow-light in a thermal atomic medium of electromagnetically induced transparency. Nondiffraction is achieved for an arbitrary paraxial image by manipulating the susceptibility in momentum space, in contrast to the common approach, which employs guidance of specific modes by manipulating the susceptibility in real space. For negative two-photon detuning, the moving atoms drag the transverse momentum components unequally, resulting in a Doppler trapping of light by atoms in two dimensions.
We experimentally demonstrate the manipulation of optical diffraction, utilizing the atomic thermal motion in a hot vapor medium of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). By properly tuning the EIT parameters, the refraction induced by the atomic motion may completely counterbalance the paraxial free-space diffraction and by that eliminates the effect of diffraction for arbitrary images. By further manipulation, the diffraction can be doubled, biased asymmetrically to induced deflection, or even reversed. The latter allows an experimental implementation of an analogy to a negative-index lens.
Slow light based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency is of great interest due to its applications in low-light-level nonlinear optics and quantum information manipulation. The previous experiments all dealt with the single-component slow light. Here we report the experimental demonstration of two-component or spinor slow light using a double tripod atom-light coupling scheme. The scheme involves three atomic ground states coupled to two excited states by six light fields. The oscillation due to the interaction between the two components was observed. Based on the stored light, our data showed that the double tripod scheme behaves like the two outcomes of an interferometer enabling precision measurements of frequency detuning. We experimentally demonstrated a possible application of the double tripod scheme as quantum memory/rotator for the two-color qubit. Our study also suggests that the spinor slow light is a better method than a widely-used scheme in the nonlinear frequency conversion.
We study the manipulation of slow light with an orbital angular momentum propagating in a cloud of cold atoms. Atoms are affected by four copropagating control laser beams in a double tripod configuration of the atomic energy levels involved, allowing to minimize the losses at the vortex core of the control beams. In such a situation the atomic medium is transparent for a pair of copropagating probe fields, leading to the creation of two-component (spinor) slow light. We study the interaction between the probe fields when two control beams carry optical vortices of opposite helicity. As a result, a transfer of the optical vortex takes place from the control to the probe fields without switching off and on the control beams. This feature is missing in a single tripod scheme where the optical vortex can be transferred from the control to the probe field only during either the storage or retrieval of light.
We consider propagation, storing and retrieval of slow light (probe beam) in a resonant atomic medium illuminated by two control laser beams of larger intensity. The probe and two control beams act on atoms in a tripod configuration of the light-matter coupling. The first control beam is allowed to have an orbital angular momentum (OAM). Application of the second vortex-free control laser ensures the adiabatic (lossles) propagation of the probe beam at the vortex core where the intensity of the first control laser goes to zero. Storing and release of the probe beam is accomplished by switching off and on the control laser beams leading to the transfer of the optical vortex from the first control beam to the regenerated probe field. A part of the stored probe beam remains frozen in the medium in the form of atomic spin excitations, the number of which increases with increasing the intensity of the second control laser. We analyse such losses in the regenerated probe beam and provide conditions for the optical vortex of the control beam to be transferred efficiently to the restored probe beam.
Phase reversal occurs in the propagation of an electromagnetic wave in a negatively refracting medium or a phase-conjugate interface. Here we report the experimental observation of phase reversal diffraction without the above devices. Our experimental results and theoretical analysis demonstrate that phase reversal diffraction can be formed through the first-order field correlation of chaotic light. The experimental realization is similar to phase reversal behavior in negatively refracting media.