Optical pumping in dense atomic media: Limitations due to reabsorption of spontaneously emitted photons

Abstract

Resonant optical pumping in dense atomic media is discussed, where the absorption length is less than the smallest characteristic dimension of the sample. It is shown that reabsorption and multiple scattering of spontaneous photons (radiation trapping) can substantially slow down the rate of optical pumping. A very slow relaxation out of the target state of the pump process is then sufficient to make optical pumping impossible. As model systems an inhomogeneously and a radiatively broadened 3-level system resonantly driven with a strong broad-band pump field are considered.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Resolved-sideband Raman cooling to the ground state of an optical lattice

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Radiation trapping in coherent media
• Mesoscopic coherence in light scattering from cold, optically dense and disordered atomic systems
• Enhanced index of refraction in four-wave mixing media
• Phase modulation induced by cooperative effects in electromagnetically induced transparency