Effects of the upper level coupling field on lasing without inversion in a V-type system

Driven by one upper level coupling field, a three-level V-type atomic system with a pair of upper levels is studied. With one strong coupling field and one weak probe field, it is found that, due to the effects of the upper level coupling field, the quantum coherence between the two upper levels can be induced, and the absorption of the probing field is very sensitive to the relative phase of the probe, the pumping and the upper level coupling fields. With proper parameters, lasing without inversion (LWI) can be realized.     

Atomic reflection off conductor walls as a tool in cold atom traps

We explain why a system of cold ⁸⁵Rb atoms at temperatures of the order T≈ 7.78× 10^-5 K and below, but not too low to lie in the quantum reflection regime, should be automatically repelled from the surface of a conductor without the need of an evanescent field, as in a typical atom mirror, to counteract the van der Waals attraction. The repulsive potential arises naturally outside the conductor and is effective at distances from the conductor surface of about 400 nm, intermediate between the van der Waals and the Casimir-Polder regions of variation. We propose that such a field-free reflection capability should be useful as a component in cold atom traps. It should be practically free of undesirable field fluctuations and would be operative at distances for which surface roughness, dissipative effects and other finite conductivity effects should be negligibly small.     

Dynamics of atomic decay in a special one dimensional photonic crystal

Recently, Liu et al. [Phys. Rev. B 74, 075314 (2006)] pointed out that the atomic instant decay rate in one dimensional photonic crystal (1DPC) showed a series of pulse-like peaks with time. In this paper, we continue their work, and adopt a special 1DPC, in which the refractive indexes of both constitution layers in a period are the same, to perform the analysis in detail. Our results show that the pulse-like peak of instant decay rate originates from the interaction between the atom and the sub-reservoir, the latter of which corresponds to the group of reflected fields having the same optical distance. The atom interacts with such a sub-reservoir mainly after the time needed for propagation. However, near the arrival time of the reflected field, the atomic level is broadened and couples to all frequency components of the sub-reservoir, and the pulse-like peak of instant decay rate appears. Although our conclusion is deduced with the special 1DPC, it is also valid for more general cases and might be useful to measure the quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effect, since the interval of repeated measurements may be expanded to several optical cycles in 1DPC, which will facilitate the observation of the quantum Zeno or anti-Zeno effect.     

Coherent effects under suppressed spontaneous emission

An ensemble of resonance atoms is considered, which are doped into a medium with well developed polariton effect, when in the spectrum of polariton states there is a band gap. If an atom with a resonance frequency inside the polariton gap is placed into the medium, the atomic spontaneous emission is suppressed. However, a system of resonance atoms inside the polariton gap can radiate when their coherent interaction is sufficiently strong. Thus the suppression of spontaneous emission for a single atom can be overcome by a collective of atoms radiating coherently. Conditions when such collective effects can appear and their dynamics are analysed. Received 7 June 2000     

Control of spontaneous emission spectra via an external coherent magnetic field in a cycle-configuration atomic medium

We theoretically study the features of the spontaneous emission spectra in a coherently driven cold four-level atomic system with a cyclic configuration. It is shown that a few interesting phenomena such as spectral-line narrowing, spectral-line enhancement, and spectral-line suppression can be realized in our system. Interestingly enough, the spectral-line enhancement and suppression can be controlled just by appropriately modulating the phase, the frequency, and the intensity of an external coherent magnetic field, respectively. This investigation may find applications in high-precision spectroscopy. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Effects of quantum interference on the spontaneous emission in a coherently driven three-level atom

A new scheme of the influence of quantum interference on the spontaneous emission in a coherently driven three-level medium is presented in this paper. The results are the same with that discussed by [S.-Y. Zhu, L.M. Narducci, M.O. Scully, Phys. Rev. A 52, 4791 (1995)] under resonance conditions, but they are different when the driven field is detuned. Received 8 September 1999 and Received in final form 13 January 2000     

Sideband structure spontaneous spectrum without the rotating wave approximation

The effects of the non-rotating wave approximation (non-RWA) on the spontaneous emission of a V-type three-level atom are studied, where the excited states are coupled to a common ground state by a weak laser field and the upper-level doublet is driven by a strong microwave field. When the non-RWA is applied to the interaction of the atom with the microwave field, for some values of the parameters involved, the spontaneous emission spectrum is comprised of a central peak and a series of sidebands with a constant spacing of the microwave frequency, and the central peak and/or sidebands can be split into two components. The physical interpretation of the spectral characteristics is given in light of the dressed states.     

Multilevel atomic entanglement induced by spontaneous emission in free space

We investigate two identical Λ-type atoms in free space, and focus on the entanglement between the two atoms. We derive a master equation for the atomic subspace and solve it analytically to show how the spontaneous emission from the two atoms system induces entanglement. The magnitude of the entanglement and the steady state entanglement are found to be strongly dependent on the initial states and the orientation of the dipoles of the two atoms.     

Electromagnetic transition in waveguide with application to lasers

The electromagnetic transition of two-level atomic systems in a waveguide is calculated. Compared with the result in free space, the spontaneous emission rate decrease because the phase space is smaller, and meanwhile, some resonance appears in some cases. Moreover, the influence of non-uniform electromagnetic field in a waveguide on absorption and stimulated emission is considered. Applying the results to lasers, a method to enhance the laser power is proposed. Received 29 May 2001 and Received in final form 25 October 2001     

Entanglement generation in a two-mode single-atom laser

We present a method of generating two-mode single atom laser based on the nonresonant interaction of a three-level Λ type atom in a two-mode cavity with three strong classical driving fields. An analytical solution for this effective dynamics under the presence of the cavity losses is obtained, which allow us to analyze the entanglement properties and the photon statistics of the two cavity modes exactly. It is also shown that the possible generation of the two-mode entangled coherent states in the transient regime after the atomic measurement.     

Raman spectroscopy of a single ion coupled to a high-finesse cavity

We describe an ion-based cavity-QED system in which the internal dynamics of an atom is coupled to the modes of an optical cavity by vacuum-stimulated Raman transitions. We observe Raman spectra for different excitation polarizations and find quantitative agreement with theoretical simulations. Residual motion of the ion introduces motional sidebands in the Raman spectrum and leads to ion delocalization. The system offers prospects for cavity-assisted resolved-sideband ground-state cooling and coherent manipulation of ions and photons. C. Russo and H.G. Barros contributed equally to this work.     

Simplified approach to double jumps for fluorescing dipole-dipole interacting atoms

A simplified scheme for the investigation of cooperative effects in the quantum jump statistics of small numbers of fluorescing atoms and ions in a trap is presented. It allows the analytic treatment of three dipole-dipole interacting four-level systems which model the relevant level scheme of Ba⁺ ions. For the latter, a huge rate of double and triple jumps was reported in a former experiment and the huge rate was attributed to the dipole-dipole interaction. Our theoretical results show that the effect of the dipole-dipole interaction on these rates is at most 5% and that for the parameter values of the experiment there is practically no effect. Consequently it seems that the dipole-dipole interaction can be ruled out as a possible explanation for the huge rates reported in the experiment.     

Entanglement dynamics in atom-field interaction in the presence of noise: a special application of the Burshtein equation

The entanglement dynamics in a system of the interaction of an atom with a single-mode thermal field in the presence of noise is studied by the Jaynes-Cummings model. Two-state random phase telegraph noise is considered as the noise in the interaction and an exact solution to the model under this noise is obtained by the Burshtein equation. Although the Burshtein equation is applicable for laser-atom interactions, it is shown that it can be applied to atom-thermal field system as a special case. The solution is used to investigate the entanglement dynamics of the atom-field interaction by calculating a lower bound on concurrence. It is found that the entanglement is a non monotonic function of the intensity of the noise. The degree of the entanglement decreases to a minimum value for an optimal intensity of the noise and then increases for a sufficiently large intensity. Moreover, intense noise may generate stronger entanglement compared with the absence of noise.     

Spontaneous emission from a four-level system

We examine the decay dynamics of a free four-level system in the -V configuration. Quantum interference strongly manifests itself in this system, as can be seen by looking at the combined spectral distribution of the two emitted photons and at the time evolution of the intermediate-level populations, whose effective lifetimes can become very long under certain conditions for the atomic parameters. This effect is attributable to a population transfer mechanism induced in the time evolution equations by the Fano terms, also responsible for the strong modifications of the spectral correlation between the emitted photons which we analyze in detail. Finally, population trapping can also occur when the two intermediate levels are degenerate. Received: 20 October 1998     

Highly collimated emission from a left-handed photonic crystal with a quasi-cavity

We study the collimated emission characteristics from a dipole source inside a negative-effective-refractive-index photonic crystal with a quasi-cavity constructed by a concave photonic crystal reflector. The emissions along the ±X and −Y directions are forbidden by the quasi-cavity, so that most emissions propagate along the +Y direction. Simulation results show that a narrow collimated beam is achieved due to the near-zero negative effective refractive index. Moreover, the half-power beam width of such a collimated beam can be reduced to 3.48° by optimizing the size of the source area. Such a compact structure would have potential applications in micro-optical devices.     

Photostability of single-photon emission from a single quantum dot in the 650-nm wavelength band at room temperature

The photoluminescence correlation from a single CdSe nanocrystal under pulsed excitation is studied, and a single photon is realized at wavelength 655 nm at room temperature. The single colloidal CdSe quantum dot is prepared on a SiO₂/silicon surface by a drop-and-drag technique. The long-term stability of the single-photon source is investigated; it is found that the antibunching effect weakens with excitation time, and the reason for the weakening is attributed to photobleaching. The lifetimes of photoluminescence from a single quantum dot are analyzed at different excitation times. By analyzing the probability distribution of on and off times of photoluminescence, the Auger assisted tunneling and Auger assisted photobleaching models are applied to explain the antibunching phenomenon.     

Spontaneous emission of an excited two-level atom without both rotating-wave and Markovian approximation

The spontaneous emission of an excited atom is analyzed by quantum stochastic trajectory approach without both rotating-wave approximation and Markovian approximation. The atom finite size effect is also taken into account. We show by an example that the correction due to the counter-rotating wave term is rather small, even for the largest atomic number of real nuclei. Received 10 July 2002 / Received in final form 12 November 2002 Published online 4 February 2003     

The control of near-field optics: imposing direction through coupling with off-resonant laser light

The well-known spatially distributed form of the near field, associated with a dipolar source, is usually unsuitable for effecting the excitation of a location-specific detector in the vicinity. It is of interest, therefore, to identify a means of producing a much more greatly directed character to such a near field, imposing features that are more commonly associated with longer-range, wave-zone electromagnetic propagation. In this paper, it is shown that nonlinear optical coupling with off-resonant, throughput laser light can achieve this effect. Based on a quantum electrodynamical analysis it is shown that two mechanisms contribute; one requires both the source and detector to be irradiated by the throughput radiation, the other can operate with the source alone irradiated. The analysis leads to results identifying the dependence of each mechanism on the relative directions of the laser beam and the source–detector displacement. Contour maps of the ensuing near field, at the source emission frequency, exhibit a directionality that grows with the off-resonant beam intensity. The phenomenon affords a means of achieving optical control over the near-field distribution.