Mingtao Cao

Investigating the self-healing property of an optical Airy beam.

We report the theoretical and experimental study of the self-healing property of an Airy beam related to its phase. We find that, even when the phase of an Airy beam is not preserved, the beam still exhibits the self-healing property but undergoes a severe diffraction. To decrease the diffraction effect, we utilize an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) image-cloning system based on position selective absorption effect to further demonstrate the self-healing phenomenon. Our experimental results show excellent agreement with the theoretical analysis.

Generation of Airy beams by four-wave mixing in Rubidium vapor cell

We report on an experimental generation of Airy beams by four-wave mixing (FWM) in atomic vapor cells. This is achieved by using a non-degenerate FWM process, which occurs with two Gaussian pump beams and one Airy signal beam in hot Rubidium vapor. After satisfying the phase matching condition, a FWM field with the profile of an Airy beam can be generated. In our experiment, the diffraction-free and self-healing behaviors of the generated FWM beam are examined. The results shown that the generated FWM beam is an Airy beam. The nonlinear generation process can be extended to other configurations in the atomic medium, which will be useful for manipulation and application of Airy beams in atomic systems.

Transfer and conversion of images based on EIT in atom vapor.

Transfer and conversion of images between different wavelengths or polarization has significant applications in optical communication and quantum information processing. We demonstrated the transfer of images based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a rubidium vapor cell. In experiments, a 2D image generated by a spatial light modulator is used as a coupling field, and a plane wave served as a signal field. We found that the image carried by coupling field could be transferred to that carried by signal field, and the spatial patterns of transferred image are much better than that of the initial image. It also could be much smaller than that determined by the diffraction limit of the optical system. We also studied the subdiffraction propagation for the transferred image. Our results may have applications in quantum interference lithography and coherent Raman spectroscopy.

Spin polarization separation of light reflected at Brewster angle.

A spin polarization separation of reflected light is observed, when a linearly polarized Gaussian beam impinges on an air-glass interface at Brewster angle. In the far-field zone, spins of photons are oppositely polarized in two regions along the direction perpendicular to incident plane. Spatial scale of this polarization is related to optical properties of dielectric and can be controlled by experimental configuration. We believe that this study benefits the manipulation of spins of photons and the development of methods for investigating optical properties of materials.

Demonstration of CNOT gate with Laguerre Gaussian beams via four-wave mixing in atom vapor

We present an experimental study of controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate through four-wave mixing (FWM) process in a Rubidium vapor cell. A degenerate FWM process in a two level atomic system is directly excited by a single diode laser, where backward pump beam and probe beam are Laguerre Gaussian mode. By means of photons carrying orbital angular momentum, we demonstrate the ability to realize CNOT gate with topological charges transformation in this nonlinear process. The fidelity of CNOT gate for a superposition state with different topological charge reaches about 97% in our experiment.

Identifying the orbital angular momentum of light based on atomic ensembles

We propose a scheme to distinguish the orbital angular momentum state of the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam based on the electromagnetically induced transparency modulated by a microwave field in atomic ensembles. We show that the transverse phase variation of a probe beam with the LG mode can be mapped into the spatial intensity distribution due to the change of atomic coherence caused by the microwave. The proposal may provide a useful tool for studying higher-dimensional quantum information based on atomic ensembles.

Ghost imaging with different frequencies through non-degenerated four-wave mixing

As a novel imaging method, ghost imaging has been widely explored in various fields of research, such as lensless ghost imaging, computational ghost imaging, turbulence-free ghost imaging. Recently, ghost imaging in non-degenerated system with pseudo-thermal light has been discussed theoretically, however, to our best knowledge, no experimental evidence has been proven yet. In this paper, we propose a new approach to realize ghost imaging with different frequencies, which are generated through a non-degenerated four-wave mixing(FWM) process in Rb vapor. In our experiment, by employing pseudo-thermal light as the probe beam, we found that the generated FWM signal has a strong second-order correlation with the original thermal light. On basis of that, we successfully implement non-degenerate ghost imaging, and reconstruct highly similar images of objects.

Deutsch’s algorithm with topological charges of optical vortices via non-degenerate four-wave mixing

We propose a scheme to implement the Deutschs algorithm through non-degenerate four-wave mixing process. By employing photon topological charges of optical vortices, we demonstrate the ability to realize the necessary four logic gates for all balanced and constant functions. We also analyze the feasibility of the proposed scheme on the single photon level.

Resolution enhancement of ghost imaging in atom vapor

Ghost imaging is an imaging technique in which the image of an object is revealed only in the correlation measurement between two beams of light, whereas the individual measurements contain no imaging information. Normally, the resolution of the image, which even exceeds the Rayleigh limit, is shown to be related to the transverse coherent length (lc) of the speckle pattern. In this Letter, we demonstrate experimentally that the speckle size can be compressed by a coherent population trapping (CPT) process in atom vapor, and the resolution of GI can be greatly enhanced by the CPT process. The technique we exploit is quite efficient and robust, and it may be useful in the field of quantum and classical two-photon imaging, all-optical image processing, and quantum communication.

Spatially modulated thermal light in atomic medium for enhanced ghost imaging

Recent years have seen vast progress in image modulation based on atomic media, with potential applications in both classical optical imaging and quantum imaging regions. However, there have been few investigations of how thermal light images interact with an electromagnetically induced transparent medium. In this letter, we experimentally demonstrate pseudo-thermal light modulation on coherent population trapping conditions in 87Rb vapor. By introducing the Laguerre-Gaussian beam as the control beam and the encoded speckle as the probe beam, we obtained sharper speckle patterns after the atom cell compared with that in free space. The spatially modulated thermal light was then used to enhance the image resolution in ghost imaging of which the resolution was enhanced by factor 3, since the ghost image resolution is heavily reliant on the speckle’s transverse coherent length. Our results are promising for potential applications in high resolution ghost imaging and image metrology, image processing and biomedical imaging.