ABSTRACT
We study the creation of stationary light pulses (SLPs), i.e., light pulses without motion, based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency with two counterpropagating coupling fields in cold atoms. We show that the Raman excitations created by counterpropagating probe and coupling fields prohibit the formation of SLPs in media of cold and stationary atoms such as laser-cooled atom clouds, Bose condensates or color-center crystals. A method is experimentally demonstrated to suppress these Raman excitations and SLPs are realized in laser-cooled atoms. Furthermore, we report the first experimental observation of a bichromatic SLP at wavelengths for which no Bragg grating can be established. Our work advances the understanding of SLPs and opens a new avenue to SLP studies for few-photon nonlinear interactions.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate a simple method to increase the optical density (OD) of cold atom clouds produced by a magneto-optical trap (MOT). A pair of rectangular anti-Helmholtz coils is used in the MOT to generate the magnetic field that produces the cigar-shaped atom cloud. With 7.2x10(8) (87)Rb atoms in the cigar-type MOT, we achieve an OD of 32 as determined by the slow light measurement and this OD is large enough such that the atom cloud can almost contain the entire Gaussian light pulse. Compared to the conventional MOT under the same trapping conditions, the OD is increased by about 2.7 folds by this simple method. In another MOT setup of the cigar-shaped Cs atom cloud, we achieve an OD of 105 as determined by the absorption spectrum of the |6S(1/2),F = 4>-->/6P(3/2),F' = 5> transition.
