44 research outputs found
Optical waveguide arrays: quantum effects and PT symmetry breaking
Over the last two decades, advances in fabrication have led to significant
progress in creating patterned heterostructures that support either carriers,
such as electrons or holes, with specific band structure or electromagnetic
waves with a given mode structure and dispersion. In this article, we review
the properties of light in coupled optical waveguides that support specific
energy spectra, with or without the effects of disorder, that are
well-described by a Hermitian tight-binding model. We show that with a
judicious choice of the initial wave packet, this system displays the
characteristics of a quantum particle, including transverse photonic transport
and localization, and that of a classical particle. We extend the analysis to
non-Hermitian, parity and time-reversal () symmetric Hamiltonians
which physically represent waveguide arrays with spatially separated, balanced
absorption or amplification. We show that coupled waveguides are an ideal
candidate to simulate -symmetric Hamiltonians and the transition
from a purely real energy spectrum to a spectrum with complex conjugate
eigenvalues that occurs in them.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, Invited Review for European Physics Journal -
Applied Physic
Role of inhomogeneous broadening in lasing without inversion in ladder systems
We study the effect of Doppler broadening on the inversionless gain that can be realized in a ladder configuration. The gain is calculated when the strong coherent pump and the weak probe are either copropagating or counterpropagating. The results indicate that the counterpropagating situation is the optimal one for obtaining maximum amplification, since for identical Doppler broadening, the counterpropagating geometry yields higher amplification than the copropagating geometry. The effect of Doppler broadening on electromagnetically induced transparency in the same atomic system is also briefly discussed
Tunable waveguide lattices with non-uniform parity-symmetric tunneling
We investigate the single-particle time evolution and two-particle quantum
correlations in a one-dimensional -site lattice with a site-dependent
nearest neighbor tunneling function . Since
the bandwidth and the energy levels spacings for such a lattice both depend
upon , we show that the observable properties of a wavepacket, such as
its spread and the relative phases of its constitutents, vary dramatically as
is varied from positive to negative values. We also find that the
quantum correlations are exquisitely sensitive to the form of the tunneling
function. Our results suggest that arrays of waveguides with position-dependent
evanascent couplings will show rich dynamics with no counterpart in
present-day, traditional systems.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Parity-time symmetry breaking in optically coupled semiconductor lasers
We experimentally demonstrate the realization of a parity-time (PT) symmetry breaking in optically coupled semiconductor lasers (SCLs). The two SCLs are identical except for a detuning between their optical emission frequencies. This detuning is analogous to the gain-loss parameter found in optical PT systems. To model the coupled SCLs, we employ the standard rate equations describing the electric field and carrier inversion of each SCL, and show that, under certain conditions, the rate equations reduce to the canonical, two-site PT- symmetric model. This model captures the global behavior of the laser intensity as the system parameters are varied. Overall, we find that this bulk system (coupled SCLs) provides an excellent test-bed to probe the characteristics of PT-breaking transitions, including the effects of time delay
Deriving spectroscopic information from intensity-intensity correlations
We present a very simple theoretical framework for extracting spectroscopic data on an atom via stochastic probing with a fluctuating laser source. By exploiting the fact that the linear susceptibility contains all the atomic structure information in it, we show that the power spectrum of the fluctuations in the intensity radiated from an atomic sample provides the relevant, atomic-level information. The analysis we present is very general and can be applied to a wide variety of atomic and molecular systems
Parity–Time Symmetry in Bidirectionally Coupled Semiconductor Lasers
We report on the numerical analysis of intensity dynamics of a pair of mutually coupled, single-mode semiconductor lasers that are operated in a configuration that leads to features reminiscent of parity–time symmetry. Starting from the rate equations for the intracavity electric fields of the two lasers and the rate equations for carrier inversions, we show how these equations reduce to a simple 2 × 2 effective Hamiltonian that is identical to that of a typical parity–time (PT)-symmetric dimer. After establishing that a pair of coupled semiconductor lasers could be PT-symmetric, we solve the full set of rate equations and show that despite complicating factors like gain saturation and nonlinearities, the rate equation model predicts intensity dynamics that are akin to those in a PT-symmetric system. The article describes some of the advantages of using semiconductor lasers to realize a PT-symmetric system and concludes with some possible directions for future work on this system
Lasing without inversion in the absence of a coherent coupling field
We analyze the inversionless gain in a three-level ladder system by replacing the usual coherent coupling field with an incoherent field. Surprisingly, it is found that one can obtain inversionless amplification of a weak probe even in the absence of a coherent field in the model. We conclude that gain is determined by the ensemble average of the product of the two-photon coherence and the "effective Rabi frequency" of the field. Thus, even though the incoherent pump reduces the two-photon coherence, gain can be restored by choosing sufficiently high strengths of the incoherent field