Optical switching and bistability in a four-level atomic systems

Abstract

We explore the coherent control of nonlinear absorption of intense laser fields in four-level atomic systems. For instance, in a four-level ladder system, a coupling field creates electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with Aulter-Townes doublet for the probe field while the control field is absent. A large absorption peak appears at resonance as the control field is switched on. We show how such a large absorption leads to optical switching. Further, this large absorption gets diminished and a transparency window appears due to the saturation effects as the strength of the probe field is increased. We further demonstrate that the threshold of the optical bistability can be modified by suitable choices of the coupling and the control fields. In a four-level Y-type configuration, the effect of the control field on saturable absorption (SA) and reverse saturable absorption (RSA) is highlighted in the context of nonlinear absorption of the probe field. We achieve RSA and SA in a simple atomic system just by applying a control field.

References in corpus (5)

• Coherent optical detection of highly excited Rydberg states using electromagnetically induced transparency
• All-optical switching in rubidium vapor
• Observation of absorptive photon switching by quantum interference
• Effect of Atomic Coherence on Absorption in Four-level Systems: an Analytical study
• Estimation of temporal separation of slow light pulses in atomic vapors by weak measurement

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Microwave-controlled optical double optomechanically induced transparency in a hybrid piezo-optomechanical cavity system
• Phase-dependent double optomechanically induced transparency in a hybrid optomechanical cavity system with coherently mechanical driving
• Vibration induced transparency: Simulating an optomechanical system via the cavity QED setup with a movable atom