Michal Bajcsy

Stationary pulses of light in an atomic medium

Physical processes that could facilitate coherent control of light propagation are under active exploration. In addition to their fundamental interest, these efforts are stimulated by practical possibilities, such as the development of a quantum memory for photonic states. Controlled localization and storage of photonic pulses may also allow novel approaches to manipulating of light via enhanced nonlinear optical processes. Recently, electromagnetically induced transparency was used to reduce the group velocity of propagating light pulses and to reversibly map propagating light pulses into stationary spin excitations in atomic media. Here we describe and experimentally demonstrate a technique in which light propagating in a medium of Rb atoms is converted into an excitation with localized, stationary electromagnetic energy, which can be held and released after a controllable interval. Our method creates pulses of light with stationary envelopes bound to an atomic spin coherence, offering new possibilities for photon state manipulation and nonlinear optical processes at low light levels.

Efficient all-optical switching using slow light within a hollow fiber

We demonstrate a fiber-optical switch that is activated at tiny energies corresponding to a few hundred optical photons per pulse. This is achieved by simultaneously confining both photons and a small laser-cooled ensemble of atoms inside the microscopic hollow core of a single-mode photonic-crystal fiber and using quantum optical techniques for generating slow light propagation and large nonlinear interaction between light beams.

Nonlinear optics with stationary pulses of light.

We show that the recently demonstrated technique for generating stationary pulses of light [M. Bajcsy, A. S. Zibrov, and M. D. Lukin, Nature (London) 426, 638 (2003)] can be extended to localize optical pulses in all three spatial dimensions in a resonant atomic medium. This method can be used to dramatically enhance the nonlinear interaction between weak optical pulses. In particular, we show that an efficient Kerr-like interaction between two pulses can be implemented as a sequence of several purely linear optical processes. The resulting process may enable coherent interactions between single photon pulses.

Laser-cooled atoms inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber

We describe the loading of laser-cooled rubidium atoms into a single-mode hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber. Inside the fiber, the atoms are confined by a far-detuned optical trap and probed by a weak resonant beam. We describe different loading methods and compare their trade-offs in terms of implementation complexity and atom-loading efficiency. The most efficient procedure results in loading of {approx}30,000 rubidium atoms, which creates a medium with an optical depth of {approx}180 inside the fiber. Compared to our earlier study this represents a sixfold increase in the maximum achieved optical depth in this system.

Switching and Counting With Atomic Vapors in Photonic-Crystal Fibers

We review our recent experiments demonstrating a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber loaded with laser-cooled atomic vapor as a system for all-optical switching with pulses containing few hundred photons. Additionally, we discuss the outlooks for improving the efficiency of this switching scheme and present preliminary results geared toward using the system as a photon-number resolving detector.

Few photon switching with slow light in hollow fiber

Cold atoms confined inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber with core diameters of a few photon wavelengths are a promising medium for studying nonlinear optical interactions at extremely low light levels. The high electric field intensity per photon and interaction lengths not limited by diffraction are some of the unique features of this system. Here, we present the results of our first nonlinear optics experiments in this system including a demonstration of an all-optical switch that is activated at energies corresponding to few hundred optical photons per pulse.

SWITCHING OF LIGHT WITH LIGHT USING COLD ATOMS INSIDE A HOLLOW OPTICAL FIBER

We demonstrate a flber-optical switch that operates with a few hundred photons per switching pulse. The light-light interaction is mediated by laser-cooled atoms. The required strong interaction between atoms and light is achieved by simultaneously conflning photons and atoms inside the microscopic hollow core of a single-mode photonic-crystal flber.