Manipulation of Zeeman coherence in solids at room temperature: Ramsey interference in the coherent-population-trapping spectrum of ruby

Journal Article · Wed Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2006 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.74.053820· OSTI ID:20979350

Kolesov, Roman; Scully, Marlan O; Kocharovskaya, Olga ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4242 (United States)

Coherent population trapping (CPT) in a three-level atomic medium pumped by two subsequent short optical pulses is considered under the condition of negligible population decay from the excited optical state. It is shown that the amount of atomic population transferred to the excited state by the combined action of the pulses strongly depends on the phase of the ground-state coherence excited by the first pulse at the arrival time of the second pulse. Oscillatory behavior of optical excitation efficiency on the time delay between the pulses is predicted. It is also shown that saturating optical pulses can produce population inversion in a resonantly pumped quasi-two-level system. A class of solid materials in which the predicted phenomena can be observed at room temperature is found. It includes some rare-earth and transition-metal doped dielectric crystals where Orbach relaxation between ground-state Zeeman states is suppressed: ruby, alexandrite, and several others. On the basis of the theoretical predictions, experimental observation of Ramsey fringes in CPT spectrum of ruby is reported.

• OSTI ID: 20979350
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 74, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.74.053820; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
CRYSTALS
DECAY
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
DOPED MATERIALS
EXCITED STATES
GROUND STATES
INTERFERENCE
LASER RADIATION
OPTICAL PUMPING
POPULATION INVERSION
RARE EARTHS
RELAXATION
RUBY
SOLIDS
SPECTRA
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K
TIME DELAY
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
TRAPPING
ZEEMAN EFFECT