Stationary light pulses and narrowband light storage in a laser-cooled ensemble loaded into a hollow-core fiber

We report on an observation of stationary light pulses and narrowband light storage inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. Laser-cooled atoms were first loaded into the fiber core, providing strong light-matter coupling. Light pulses were then stored in a collective atomic excitation using a single control laser beam. By applying a second counterpropagating control beam, a light pulse could be brought to a standstill. Our work paves the way towards the creation of strongly correlated many-body systems with photons and applications in the field of quantum information processing.

Figure 1

Coupling schemes for EIT (a) and SLPs (b). ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{p,c}$ are the Rabi frequencies of the probe and control fields, respectively.

Figure 2

Level scheme of ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ used for the simulation of transmission and propagation.

Figure 3

Schematic experimental setup. PBS: polarizing beam splitter.

Figure 4

(a) Experimental (symbols) and simulated (lines) transmission through the HCPCF filled with atoms for $D_{\text{opt}}$ of 20 (black squares) and 400 (red circles) without control field. (b) EIT at resonance for the parameters $D_{\text{opt}}$=20, ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}=4.5\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Delta }}_c^{+}=0.7\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{\Theta }=550\left(50\right)\mu \mathrm{K}$ (black squares) and $D_{\text{opt}}$=400, ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}=6.1\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Delta }}_c^{+}=1.8\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{\Theta }=450\left(50\right)\mu \mathrm{K}$ (red circles).

Figure 5

Normalized transmission of a Gaussian input probe pulse (black squares) through the HCPCF. Symbols depict experimental data and lines simulations. The control Rabi frequencies are indicated by line segments. The time scales are different in both plots. (a) Slow light: The input pulse is delayed depending on the $D_{\text{opt}}$ for ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}=3.8\mathrm{\Gamma }$. $\mathrm{\Theta }=575\left(75\right)\mu \mathrm{K},{\gamma }_{21}=0.037\left(3\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }$. (b) Light storage: The input pulse is delayed by approximately one pulse width for constant ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}$ (orange circles and line). The solid, dashed, and dotted lines represent ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}\left(t\right)$ with colors according to the respective transmission for different storage times of $0.6\mu \mathrm{s}$ (blue triangles) and $1\mu \mathrm{s}$ (red diamonds) with $D_{\text{opt}}$=145(5), and a time of $1.4\mu \mathrm{s}$ (green stars) with $D_{\text{opt}}$=195(5). ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c=3.7\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{\Theta }=450\left(50\right)\mu \mathrm{K},{\gamma }_{\mathrm{trd}}=0.008\left(1\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }$.

Figure 6

Normalized transmission of a Gaussian input probe pulse (black squares) through the HCPCF. Symbols depict experimental data and lines simulations. The control Rabi frequencies are indicated by line segments. Slow light: ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}=2.6\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{-}=0,{\gamma }_{\mathrm{inh}}=0.003\left(1\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }$ (orange circles). SLP: ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{+}=2.6\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Omega }}_c^{-}=3.8\mathrm{\Gamma },{\gamma }_{\mathrm{inh}}=0.012\left(1\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }$ (red diamonds). $D_{\text{opt}}$=53, $\mathrm{\Theta }=350\left(50\right)\mu \mathrm{K},{\gamma }_{\mathrm{trd}}=0.006\left(1\right)\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Delta }}_c^{+}=+1.0\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Delta }}_p^{+}=+0.45\mathrm{\Gamma },{\mathrm{\Delta }}_c^{-}=-2.5\mathrm{\Gamma }$. The inset shows an enlarged version for $t>800$ ns.