Elimination, reversal, and directional bias of optical diffraction

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the manipulation of optical diffraction, utilizing the atomic thermal motion in a hot vapor medium of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). By properly tuning the EIT parameters, the refraction induced by the atomic motion may completely counterbalance the paraxial free-space diffraction and by that eliminates the effect of diffraction for arbitrary images. By further manipulation, the diffraction can be doubled, biased asymmetrically to induced deflection, or even reversed. The latter allows an experimental implementation of an analogy to a negative-index lens.

References in corpus (9)

• Storing images in warm atomic vapor
• Nondifractive Propagation of Light in Photonic Crystals
• Ultraslow propagation of matched pulses by four-wave mixing in an atomic vapor
• Diffusion-induced Ramsey narrowing
• All-Optical Delay of Images using Slow Light
• Theory of Thermal Motion in Electromagnetically Induced Transparency: Diffusion, Doppler, Dicke and Ramsey
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Cited by in corpus (35)

• A practical guide to electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapor
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• Transfer of orbital angular momentum of light using two component slow light
• Slow polaritons with orbital angular momentum in atomic gases
• High capacity spatial multimode quantum memories based on atomic ensembles
• Hot atomic vapors for nonlinear and quantum optics
• Coherent Diffusion of Polaritons in Atomic Media
• Optical vortices of slow light using tripod scheme
• Optical cloning of arbitrary images beyond the diffraction limits
• Non-diffracting Optical Beams in a Three-level Raman System
• Generation and delayed retrieval of spatially multimode Raman scattering in warm rubidium vapors
• Self-Similar Modes of Coherent Diffusion
• Programming scale-free optics in disordered ferroelectrics
• Experimental Upconversion of Images
• Three-dimensional theory of quantum memories based on Lambda-type atomic ensembles
• Control of beam propagation in optically written waveguides beyond the paraxial approximation
• How to measure diffusional decoherence in multimode rubidium vapor memories?
• Photonic band-gap properties for two-component slow light
• Identifying the orbital angular momentum of light based on atomic ensembles
• Lensing effect of electromagnetically induced transparency involving a Rydberg state
• Image cloning beyond diffraction based on coherent population trapping in a hot Rubidium vapor
• Controllable linear $\pi$-phase modulation in a thermal atom vapor without diffraction or absorption
• Diffractionless image propagation and frequency conversion via four-wave mixing exploiting the thermal motion of atoms
• Beam Instabilities in the Scale Free Regime
• Shape-preserving diffusion of a high-order mode
• Enhancement of image resolution beyond the diffraction-limit by interacting dark resonances
• Effects of thermal motion on electromagnetically induced absorption
• Structured beams invariant to coherent diffusion
• Aberration-driven tilted emission in degenerate cavities
• Continuous generation of delayed light
• Diffraction manipulation by four-wave mixing
• Angular dependency of spatial frequency modulation in diffusion media
• Synchronized resistance to inhomogeneous magnetic field-induced dephasing of an image stored in a cold atomic ensemble
• Mode hitching in traveling-wave optical parametric amplification
• Bloch oscillations of quasispin polaritons in a magneto-optically controlled atomic ensemble