We demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a four-level cascade-like system, where the two upper levels are Rydberg states coupled by a microwave field. A two-photon transition consisting of an off-resonant microwave field and an off-resonant optical field forms an effective coupling field to induce transparency of the probe light. We characterize the Rabi frequency of the effective coupling field, as well as the EIT microwave spectra. The results show that microwave assisted EIT allows us to efficiently access Rydberg states with relatively high orbital angular momentum $\ell=3$, which is promising for the study of exotic Rydberg molecular states.
We demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a four-level cascade system where the upper level is a Rydberg state. The observed spectral features are sub-Doppler and can be enhanced due to the compensation of Doppler shifts with AC Stark shifts. A theoretical description of the system is developed which agrees well with the experimental results and an expression for the optimum parameters is derived.
We develop an efficient Monte-Carlo approach to describe the optical response of cold three-level atoms in the presence of EIT and strong atomic interactions. In particular, we consider a "Rydberg-EIT medium" where one involved level is subject to large shifts due to strong van der Waals interactions with surrounding Rydberg atoms. We find excellent agreement with much more involved quantum calculations and demonstrate its applicability over a wide range of densities and interaction strengths. The calculations show that the nonlinear absorption due to Rydberg-Rydberg atom interactions exhibits…
Electrometry near a dielectric surface is performed using Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The large polarizability of high n-state Rydberg atoms gives this method extreme sensitivity. We show that adsorbates on the dielectric surface produce a significant electric field that responds to an applied field with a time constant of order one second. For transient applied fields (with a time scale of < 1 s) we observe good agreement with calculations based on numerical solutions of Laplace's equation using an effective dielectric constant to simulate the bulk dielectric.
We report on rubidium vapor-cell Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a 0.7~T magnetic field where all involved levels are in the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime, and the Rydberg state exhibits a strong diamagnetic interaction with the magnetic field. Signals from both $^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ and $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ are present in the EIT spectra. This feature of isotope-mixed Rb cells allows us to measure the field strength to within a $\pm 0.12$\% relative uncertainty. The measured spectra are in excellent agreement with the results of a Monte Carlo calculation and indicate unex…
We study the impact of Rydberg molecule formation on the storage and retrieval of Rydberg polaritons in an ultracold atomic medium. We observe coherent revivals appearing in the retrieval efficiency of stored photons that originate from simultaneous excitation of Rydberg atoms and Rydberg molecules in the system with subsequent interference between the possible storage paths. We show that over a large range of principal quantum numbers the observed results can be described by a two-state model including only the atomic Rydberg state and the Rydberg dimer molecule state. At higher principal qua…
We develop an approach to generate finite-range atomic interactions via optical Rydberg-state excitation and study the underlying excitation dynamics in theory and experiment. In contrast to previous work, the proposed scheme is based on resonant optical driving and the establishment of a dark state under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Analyzing the driven dissipative dynamics of the atomic gas, we show that the interplay between coherent light coupling, radiative decay and strong Rydberg-Rydberg atom interactions leads to the emergence of sizeable effective inte…
We investigate the Kerr and magneto-optical effects for a probe laser field with two orthogonally polarized components, propagating in a cold Rydberg atomic gas with an inverted-Y-type level configuration via double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Through an approach beyond both mean-field and ground-state approximations, we make detailed calculations on third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities and show that the system possesses giant nonlocal selfand cross-Kerr nonlinearities contributed by Rydberg-Rydberg interaction. The theoretical result of the cross-Kerr nonlinearit…
We report the measurement of absolute excitation frequencies of 87Rb to nS and nD Rydberg states. The Rydberg transition frequencies are obtained by observing electromagnetically induced transparency on a rubidium vapor cell. The accuracy of the measurement of each state is < 1 MHz, which is achieved by frequency stabilizing the two diode lasers employed for the spectroscopy to a frequency comb and a frequency comb calibrated wavelength meter, respectively. Based on the spectroscopic data we determine the quantum defects of 87Rb, and compare it with previous measurements on 85Rb. We determine …
We demonstrate improved sensitivity of Rydberg electrometry based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with a ground state repumping laser. Though there are many factors that limit the sensitivity of radio frequency field measurements, we show that repumping can enhance the interaction strength while avoiding additional Doppler or power broadening. Through this method, we nearly double the EIT amplitude without an increase in the width of the peak. A similar increase in amplitude without the repumping field is not possible through simple optimization.We also establish that one of …
We demonstrate how Rydberg atoms and the phenomena of electromagnetically induced transparency can be used to aid in the recording of a musical instrument in real time as it is played. Also, by using two different atomic species (cesium and rubidium) in the same vapor cell, we demonstrate the ability to record two guitars simultaneously, where each atomic species detects and allows for the recording of each guitar separately. The approach shows how audio data (the musical composition) can be detected with a quantum system, illustrating how we can control ensembles of atoms to such an extent th…
We report electromagnetically induced transparency for the D1 and D2 lines in $^{6}$Li in both a vapour cell and an atomic beam. Electromagnetically induced transparency is created using co-propagating mutually coherent laser beams with a frequency difference equal to the hyperfine ground state splitting of 228.2 MHz. The effects of various optical polarization configurations and applied magnetic fields are investigated. In addition, we apply an optical Ramsey spectroscopy technique which further reduces the observed resonance width.
We have analyzed a five-level $\wedge$-configuration Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) scheme for obtaining a high-efficiency FWM based on the two electromagnetically induced transparency. We find that the maximum FWM efficiency is nearly 30%, which is orders of magnitude larger than previous schemes based on the two electromagnetically induced transparency. Our scheme may provide a new possibility for technological applications such as nonlinear spectroscopy at very low light intensity, quantum single-photon nonlinear optics and quantum information science.
A highly excited Rydberg atom via electromagnetically induced transparency with two color cascading lasers has extreme sensitivity to electric fields of microwave ranging from 100 MHz to over 1 THz. It can be used as susceptible atom-based microwave communication antennas where the carrier wave usually works exactly resonant to the transition between a pair of adjacent Rydberg states with large electric dipole moment. A technique of superheterodyne with a strong on-resonant local microwave oscillator is employed to induce considerable Autler-Townes splitting where the antennas has a highest dy…
We experimentally investigate the nonlinear transmission spectrum of coherent light fields propagating through a Rydberg EIT medium with strong atomic interactions. In contrast to previous investigations, which have largely focused on resonant control fields, we explore here the full two-dimensional spectral response of the Rydberg gas. Our measurements confirm previously observed spectral features for a vanishing control-field detuning, but also reveal significant differences on two-photon resonance. In particular, we find qualitative deficiencies of mean-field models and rate-equation simula…
We present experimental results on the influence of magnetic fields and laser polarization on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using Rydberg levels of $^{87}$Rb atoms. The measurements are performed in a room temperature vapor cell with two counter-propagating laser beams at 480nm and 780nm in a ladder-type energy level scheme. We measure the EIT spectrum of a range of $ns_{1/2}$ Rydberg states for $n=19-27$, where the hyperfine structure can still be resolved. Our measurements span the range of magnetic fields from the low field linear Zeeman regime to the high field Paschen-Bac…
We investigate the transient optical response property of an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a cold Rydberg atomic gas. We show that both the transient behavior and the steady-state EIT spectrum of the system depend strongly on Rydberg interaction. Especially, the response speed of the Rydberg-EIT can be five-times faster (and even higher) than the conventional EIT without the Rydberg interaction. For comparison, two different theoretical approaches (i.e. two-atom model and many-atom model) are considered, revealing that Rydberg blockade effect plays a significant role for in…
We study the absorption and dispersion properties of a weak tunable probe field in a four-level Y-type atomic system driven by two strong laser (coupling) fields within the framework of density matrix formalism. It is found that the probe absorption profile displays double-electromagnetically induced transparency (double-EIT) and it is shown how to control it by changing the Rabi frequencies as well as the atom field detuning of the coupling fields.
We study electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of a weakly interacting cold Rydberg gas. We show that the onset of interactions is manifest as a depopulation of the Rydberg state and numerically model this effect by adding a density-dependent non-linear term to the optical Bloch equations. In the limit of a weak probe where the depopulation effect is negligible, we observe no evidence of interaction induced decoherence and obtain a narrow Rydberg dark resonance with a linewidth of <600 kHz, limited by the Rabi frequency of the coupling beam
We study intensity distribution of transmission resonances under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with lin||lin configuration in 87Rb vapor. We demonstrate that for various orientations of the external magnetic field all seven resolved EIT resonances exhibit maxima or minima at certain directions of the linear polarization of the laser field. This effect can be used for development of a high-precision vector EIT magnetometer.
We construct the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) by dynamically coupling a superradiant state with a subradiant state. The superradiant and subradiant states with enhanced and inhibited decay rates act as the excited and metastable states in EIT, respectively. Their energy difference determined by the distance between the atoms can be measured by the EIT spectra, which renders this method useful in subwavelength metrology. The scheme can also be applied to many atoms in nuclear quantum optics, where the transparency point due to counter-rotating wave terms can be observed.
We investigate the dynamics of a pair of short laser pulse trains propagating in a medium consisting of three-level $Λ$-type atoms by numerically solving the Maxwell-Schrödinger equations for atoms and fields. By performing propagation calculations with different parameters, under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency, we compare the propagation dynamics by a single pair of probe and coupling laser pulses and by probe and coupling laser pulse trains. We discuss the influence of the coupling pulse area, number of pulses, and detunings on the probe laser propagation and realizat…
We study Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of a cascade three-level atom involving 80$D_{5/2}$ state in a strong interaction regime employing a cesium ultracold cloud. In our experiment, a strong coupling laser couples 6$P_{3/2}$ to 80$D_{5/2}$ transition, while a weak probe, driving 6$S_{1/2}$ to 6$P_{3/2}$ transition, probes the coupling induced EIT signal. At the two-photon resonance, we observe that the EIT transmission decreases slowly with time, which is a signature of interaction induced metastability. The dephasing rate $γ_{\rm OD}$ is extracted with optical depth …
We demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency with the control laser in a Laguerre-Gaussian mode. The transmission spectrum is studied in an ultracold gas for the D2 line in both $^{85}$Rb and $^{87}$Rb, where the decoherence due to diffusion of the atomic medium is negligible. We compare these results to a similar configuration, but with the control laser in the fundamental laser mode. We model the transmission of a probe laser under both configurations, and we find good agreement with the experiment. We conclude that the use of Laguerre-Gaussian modes in electromagnetically induced…
We demonstrate simultaneous electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) with cesium (Cs) and rubidium (Rb) Rydberg atoms in the same vapor cell with coincident (overlapping) optical fields. Each atomic system can detect radio frequency (RF) electric (E) field strengths through modification of the EIT signal (Autler-Townes (AT) splitting), which leads to a direct SI traceable RF E-field measurement. We show that these two systems can detect the same the RF E-field strength simultaneously, which provides a direct in situ comparison of Rb and Cs RF measurements in Rydberg atoms. In effect, thi…
We show that, under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), a significant portion of the incident probe pulse can be transferred into Rayleigh and Raman scattering channels. The light scattered into the Rayleigh channel emerges from the sample with an EIT time delay. We show that a proper description of the probe light propagation in the sample should include, in the diffusion dynamics, a spin polariton generated by the two-photon EIT process. The results have important implications for studies of weak light localization, and for manipulation of single and few photon stat…
Narrow linewidth signals of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in the metastable 83Kr have been observed for the first time. Various hyperfine transitions in 4p55s[3/2]2 to 4p55p[5/2]3 manifolds of 83Kr have been identified through the experimentally observed EIT signals. Some unresolved or poorly resolved hyperfine transitions in saturated absorption spectroscopy (SAS) are clearly resolved in the present work. Using the spectral separation of these EIT identified hyperfine transitions, the magnetic hyperfine constant (A) and the electric quadrupole hyperfine constant (B) are deter…
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and absorption (EIA) are quantum coherence phenomena which result due to interference of excitation pathways. Since the first realization of EIT in 1991 and EIA in 1998, mechanisms behind these remarkable effects have been studied extensively, therefore both are relatively easily achievable in controlled environments. Combining EIT and EIA with Rydberg atoms have provided utility in various research fields such as interacting many body systems, quantum optics and quantum information science. We propose an analysis of Rydberg-EIT and Rydberg-EIA ef…
We present an experimental study of cavity assisted Rydberg atom electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using a high-finesse optical cavity ($F \sim 28000$). Rydberg atoms are excited via a two-photon transition in a ladder-type EIT configuration. A three-peak structure of the cavity transmission spectrum is observed when Rydberg EIT is generated inside the cavity. The two symmetrically spaced side peaks are caused by bright-state polaritons, while the central peak corresponds to a dark-state polariton. Anti-crossing phenomenon and the effects of mirror adsorbate electric fields are st…
We report on the first observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a ladder system in the presence of a buffer gas. In particular we study the 5S1/2 - 5P3/2 - 5D5/2 transition in thermal rubidium vapor with a neon buffer gas at a pressure of 6 Torr. In contrast to the line narrowing effect of buffer gas on Λ-systems we show that the presence of the buffer gas leads to an additional broadening of (32 +/- 5) MHz, which suggests a cross section for Rb(5D5/2)-Ne of σ = (7 +/- 1) x 10-19 m2. However, in the limit where the coupling Rabi frequency is larger than k the collisiona…
We study electromagnetically induced transparency of a ladder type configuration in ultracold atomic gases, where the upper level is an electronically highly excited Rydberg state. The strong two-body interaction in the Rydberg state leads to the excitation blockade, where all but one atoms are shifted out of resonance such that the transmission of the probe light is affected. We show that molecular coupling in the Rydberg state causes an effective, two-body dephasing. The presence of the two-body dephasing leads to a similar blockade effect. Hence the overall blockade effect is enhanced by th…
We study the lensing effect experienced by a weak probe field under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) involving a Rydberg state. A Gaussian coupling beam tightly focused on a laser-cooled atomic cloud produces an inhomogeneity in the coupling Rabi frequency along the transverse direction and makes the EIT area acting like a gradient-index medium. We image the probe beam at the position where it exits the atomic cloud, and observe that a red-detuned probe light is strongly focused with a greatly enhanced intensity whereas a blue-detuned one is de-focused with a reduce…
We perform spectroscopic measurements of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a strongly interacting Rydberg gas, and observe a significant spectral shift of the transparency from the single-atom EIT resonance as well as a spectral dephasing of the same order. We characterize the shift and dephasing as a function of atomic density, probe Rabi frequency, and principal quantum number of Rydberg states, and demonstrate that the observed spectral shift and dephasing are reduced if the size of a Gaussian atomic cloud is increased. We simulate our experiment with a semi-analytical model…
We demonstrate that the experimental results reported by M. Shuker, O. Firstenberg, R. Pugatch, A. Ben-Kish,1 A. Ron, and N. Davidson, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 76}, 023813 (2007) as Dicke narrowing of electromagnetically induced transparency, does not match with theory.
A method for diffracting the weak probe beam into unidirectional and higher-order directions is proposed via a novel Rydberg electromagnetically induced grating, providing a new way for the implementations of quantum devices with cold Rydberg atoms. The proposed scheme utilizes a suitable and position-dependent adjustment to the two-photon detuning besides the modulation of the standing-wave coupling field, bringing a in-phase modulation which can change the parity of the dispersion. We observe that when the modulation amplitude is appropriate, a perfect unidirectional diffraction grating can …
The atom-based traceable standard for microwave electrometry shows promising advantages by enabling stable and uniform measurement. Here we theoretically propose and then experimentally realize an alternative direct International System of Units (SI)-traceable and self-calibrated method for measuring a microwave electric field strength based on electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) in cold Rydberg atoms. Comparing with the method of electromagnetically induced transparency, we show that the equivalence relation between microwave Rabi frequency and Autler-Townes splitting is more valid a…
Dynamic control of atomic dressing to the highly-excited Rydberg state in multi-level systems has special appeals owing to the development of flexible and precise measurement. In this study we develop an experimentally-accessible proposal to robustly control the dressing probability via a three-step cascaded excitation with double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) technique. The system can function as an optical switch where the third addressing laser serving as the control knob can switchably engineer the dressing probability with time. Differing from a conventional two-photon EI…
We proposed utilizing a medium with a high optical depth (OD) and a Rydberg state of low principal quantum number, $n$, to create a weakly-interacting many-body system of Rydberg polaritons, based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We experimentally verified the mean field approach to weakly-interacting Rydberg polaritons, and observed the phase shift and attenuation induced by the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI). The DDI-induced phase shift or attenuation can be viewed as a consequence of the elastic or inelastic collisions among the Rydberg polaritons. Using a w…
Cavity linewidth narrowing via double-dark resonances has been experimentally observed using the 87Rb Zeeman splitting sublevels. With the steep dispersion led by the interacting dark resonances in the tripodtype electromagnetically induced transparency system, we narrow the cavity linewidth to 250 KHz at room temperature. Furthermore, the position of this ultranarrow cavity linewidth could be tuned in a 60 MHz coupling field detuning range.
We show that an alkali atom with a tripod electronic structure can yield rich electromagnetically induced transparency phenomena even at room temperature. In particular we introduce double-double electromagnetically induced transparency wherein signal and probe fields each have two transparency windows. Their group velocities can be matched in either the first or second pair of transparency windows. Moreover signal and probe fields can each experience coherent gain in the second transparency windows. We explain using a semi-classical-dressed-picture to connect the tripod electronic structure t…
We present a study of the Rydberg spectrum in \ts{166}Er for series connected to the $4f^{12} (^3H_6) 6s$, $J_c=13/2 $ and $J_c=11/2 $ ionic core states using an all-optical detection based on electromagnetically induced transparency in an effusive atomic beam. Identifying approximately 550 individual states, we find good agreement with a multi-channel quantum defect theory (MQDT) which allows assignment of most states to $ns$ or $nd$ Rydberg series. We provide an improved accuracy for the lowest two ionization thresholds to $E_{\textrm{IP}, J_c = 13/2 } = 49260.750(1)\,$cm$^{-1}$ and $E_{\tex…
We present a proof-of-principle experiment in which the population of an atomic level is spatially localized using the technique of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). The key idea is to utilize the sensitive dependence of the dark state of EIT on the intensity of the coupling laser beam. By using a sinusoidal intensity variation (standing-wave), we demonstrate that the population of a specific hyperfine level can be localized much tighter than the spatial period.
We experimentally study the photonic properties of a cold-atom sample trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency. We show that such a medium has two photonic band gaps. One of them is in the transparency window and gives rise to a Bragg mirror, which is spectrally very narrow and dynamically tunable. We discuss the advantages and the limitations of this system. As an illustration of a possible application we demonstrate a two-port all-optical switch.
We obtain subnatural linewidth (i.e. $<Γ$) for probe absorption in room-temperature Rb vapor using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a $Λ$ system. For stationary atoms, the EIT dip for a resonant control laser is as wide as the control Rabi frequency $Ω_c$. But in thermal vapor, the moving atoms fill the transparency band so that the final EIT dip remains subnatural even when $Ω_c > Γ$. We observe linewidths as small as $Γ/7$ in the $D_2$ line of Rb.
We study the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) effect with two individually addressed four-level Rydberg atoms subjected to the interatomic van der Waals interaction. We derive an effectively atomic Raman transition model where two ladders of the usual Rydberg-EIT setting terminating at the same upper Rydberg level of long radiative lifetime are turned into a Rydberg-EIT lambda setup via two-photon transitions, leaving the middle levels of each ladder largely detuned from the coupling and probe laser beams. It can hence overcome the limits of applications for EIT with atoms of the…
Laser induced line narrowing effect, discovered more than thirty years ago, can also be applied to recent studies in high resolution spectroscopy based on electromagnetically induced transparency. In this paper we first present a general form of the transmission width of electromagnetically induced transparency in a homogeneously broadened medium. We then analyze a Doppler broadened medium by using a Lorentzian function as the atomic velocity distribution. The dependence of the transmission linewidth on the driving field intensity is discussed and compared to the laser induced line narrowing e…
We show two channel electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) spectra at various optical power. The two channels are coupling field and probe field absorption. It is shown that EIT width and intensity increases linearly with pump power. A density matrix calculation is used to determine nature of EIT spectra induced by optical field. It has been observed that EIT occurs in cases when coupling laser is at fixed frequency while probe laser frequency is scanned, when coupling laser is frequency scanned and probe is at fixed frequency.
We observe electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in Rb vapor at various optical intensities, starting from below saturation to several times the saturation intensity. The observed Lorentzian width of the EIT signal is very small. Solving the time dependant density matrix equation of motion with a phenomenological decay constant, we find an expression suitable in explaining the EIT signal. In this experimental observation and theoretical analysis intensity of EIT signal and its Lorentzian width increases with Rabi frequency of optical field.
We present combined measurements of the spatially-resolved optical spectrum and the total excited-atom number in an ultracold gas of three-level atoms under electromagnetically induced transparency conditions involving high-lying Rydberg states. The observed optical transmission of a weak probe laser at the center of the coupling region exhibits a double peaked spectrum as a function of detuning, whilst the Rydberg atom number shows a comparatively narrow single resonance. By imaging the transmitted light onto a charge-coupled-device camera, we record hundreds of spectra in parallel, which are…
We discuss the differences between two well-studied and related phenomena---coherent population trapping (CPT) and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Many differences between the two---such as the effect of power in the beams, detuning of the beams from resonance, and the use of vapor cells filled with buffer gas---are demonstrated experimentally. The experiments are done using magnetic sublevels of the $ 1 \rightarrow 1 $ transition in the D$_2$ line of $^{87}$Rb.
We report the realization of an optical filter based on an optical vortex mask designed to exclusively detect a weak coherent laser field in the presence of much stronger spatially-overlapping field. We demonstrate the performance of such an optical vortex filter to eliminate the strong control field and detect only a weak optical field's transmission under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency. The attractive feature of such filter is its insensitivity to optical field frequencies and polarizations, which makes it applicable for a wide range of coherent processes.
We report here the first observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in $^{20}$Ne. The power broadening of the EIT linewidth is measured as a function of neon pressure and RF excitation power. Doppler effects on the EIT broadening are found even at low pressures and low intensities, where the linewidth should be governed only by homogeneous effects.
