Cooperative Atom-Light Interaction in a Blockaded Rydberg Ensemble

Journal Article · Fri Nov 05 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.105.193603· OSTI ID:21541677

Pritchard, J D; Maxwell, D; Gauguet, A; Weatherill, K J; Jones, M P. A.; Adams, C S ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Durham University, Rochester Building, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE (United Kingdom)

By coupling a probe transition to a Rydberg state using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) we map the strong dipole-dipole interactions onto an optical field. We characterize the resulting cooperative optical nonlinearity as a function of probe strength and density. We demonstrate good quantitative agreement between the experiment and an N-atom cooperative model for N=3 atoms per blockade sphere and the n=60 Rydberg state. The measured linewidth of the EIT resonance places an upper limit on the dephasing rate of the blockade spheres of <110 kHz.

• OSTI ID: 21541677
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 19 Vol. 105; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOM COLLISIONS
ATOMS
COLLISIONS
COUPLING
DENSITY
DIPOLES
ENERGY LEVELS
EXCITED STATES
FREQUENCY RANGE
INTERACTIONS
KHZ RANGE
MULTIPOLES
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
OPACITY
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHOTON COLLISIONS
PHOTON-ATOM COLLISIONS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RESONANCE
RYDBERG STATES