Yifu Zhu

Vacuum enhanced atomic excitation

We report an experimental study of the steady‐state behavior of strongly driven, two‐level atoms relaxing into a frequency dependent vacuum reservoir. Enhancement or suppression of the atomic excitation has been observed by tuning the resonance frequency of the cavity from one sideband of strong‐field fluorescence triplet spectrum of the other. This effect results from the modification of the population distribution among the atom‐field dressed states in the presence of a cavity‐modified vacuum reservoir. It may be useful in achieving significant steady‐state inversions of two‐level atomic samples.

Polarization of Dressed Atom-Field States in the Transient and Steady-State Regimes

It is hard to imagine a physical system simpler than a two-level atom driven by a near-resonant coherent-state optical field. Nevertheless this system displays a wealth of interesting phenomena. Intuitive insight into many of these effects is facilitated by thinking in terms of the atom-field dressed states, i. e. the eigenstates of the coupled atom-field system.[1] Insight into other effects, especially those in the transient regime, is provided by the two-level-atom vector model.[2]