D. Felinto

Collapses and revivals of stored orbital angular momentum of light in a cold-atom ensemble

We report on the storage of orbital angular momentum of light in a cold ensemble of cesium atoms. We employ Bragg diffraction to retrieve the stored optical information impressed into the atomic coherence by the incident light fields. The stored information can be manipulated by an applied magnetic field and we were able to observe collapses and revivals due to the rotation of the stored atomic Zeeman coherence for times longer than 15

Temporal coherent control of a sequential transition in rubidium atoms.

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Coherent accumulation in two-level atoms excited by a train of ultrashort pulses

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Temporal dynamics of photon pairs generated by an atomic ensemble.

An experimental investigation of the coherent interaction of femtosecond pulses with two resonant sequential transitions of Rb atoms is presented. Fluorescence from the atomic system exhibits beating at a frequency given by difference in the sequential atomic transitions. The results are interpreted in terms of quantum interference in the induced coherence and its interaction with the field that results from a cooperative emission process.

Electromagnetically induced transparency in an inhomogeneously broadenedΛtransition with multiple excited levels

In this paper we consider the interaction of inhomogeneously broadened two-level atoms with a train of pulses from a femtosecond mode-locked laser. Analytical results are obtained for the case in which the atomic relaxation times are longer then the laser repetition period, leading to accumulation in both population and coherence. These results are adequate for arbitrary pulse areas, and saturation effects are discussed. We illustrate our analytical results with a comparison to a direct numerical integration of the Bloch equations.

Dynamics of a stored Zeeman coherence grating in an external magnetic field

The time dependence of nonclassical correlations is investigated for two fields (1,2) generated by an ensemble of cold cesium atoms via the protocol of Duan et al. [Nature (London) 414, 413 (2001)]]. The correlation function R(t1,t2) for the ratio of cross to autocorrelations for the (1,2) fields at times (t1,t2) is found to have a maximum value R(max=292+/-57, which significantly violates the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality R< or =1 for classical fields. Decoherence of quantum correlations is observed over taud approximately 175 ns, and is described by our model, as is a new scheme to mitigate this effect.

Single-photon superradiance in cold atoms

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has mainly been modeled for three-level systems. In particular, considerable interest has been dedicated to the {Lambda} configuration, with two ground states and one excited state. However, in the alkali-metal atoms, which are commonly used, the hyperfine interaction in the excited state introduces several levels which simultaneously participate in the scattering process. When the Doppler broadening is comparable with the hyperfine splitting in the upper state, the three-level {Lambda} model does not reproduce the experimental results. Here we theoretically investigate the EIT in a hot vapor of alkali-metal atoms and demonstrate that it can be strongly reduced by the presence of multiple excited levels. Given this model, we also show that well-designed optical pumping enables us to significantly recover the transparency.

Delayed four- and six-wave mixing in a coherently prepared atomic ensemble.

We investigate the evolution of a Zeeman coherence grating induced in a cold atomic cesium sample in the presence of an external magnetic field. The gratings are created in a three-beam light storage configuration using two quasi-collinear writing and reading laser pulses with a counterpropagating pulse after a variable time delay. The phase-conjugated pulse arising from the atomic sample is monitored. Collapses and revivals of the retrieved pulse are observed for different polarizations of laser beams and for different directions of the applied magnetic field. While magnetic field inhomogeneities are responsible for the decay of the coherent atomic response, a five-fold increase in the coherence decay time, with respect to no applied magnetic field, is obtained for an appropriate choice of the direction of the applied magnetic field. A simplified theoretical model illustrates the role of the magnetic field mean and its inhomogeneity on the collective atomic response.

Nonlinear optical memory for manipulation of orbital angular momentum of light

The interaction of an ensemble of atoms with common vacuum modes may lead to an enhanced emission into these modes. This phenomenon, known as superradiance, highlights the coherent nature of spontaneous emission, resulting in macroscopic entangled states in mundane situations. The complexity of the typical observations of superradiance, however, masks its quantum nature, allowing alternative classical interpretations. Here we stress how this picture changed with the implementation ten years ago of a new process for single-photon generation from atomic ensembles. We present then the last piece of evidence for the superradiant nature of such process, reporting the observation of an accelerated emission of the photon with a rate that may be tuned by controllably changing the number of atoms in the ensemble. Such investigation paves the way to a new, bottom-up approach to the study of superradiance.

Dynamics of Bragg diffraction in a stored light grating in cold atoms

We report on the simultaneous observation, by delayed Bragg diffraction, of four- and six-wave mixing processes in a coherently prepared atomic ensemble consisting of cold cesium atoms. For each diffracted order, we observe different temporal pulse shapes and dependencies with the intensities of the exciting fields, evidencing the different mechanisms involved in each process. The various observations are well described by a simplified analytical theory, which considers the atomic system as an ensemble of three-level atoms in Λ configuration.