Saturation Effect Produced by Laser Pulses: Karplus–Schwinger Approach versus Bloch Solution

Abstract

The saturation effect during the excitation of a two-level system by laser pulses is investigated in the framework of two approaches: excitation probability based on Karplus–Schwinger spectral profile and exact solution of Bloch equations. Simple analytical expression for the excitation probability by exponential pulse is derived. The excitation spectra obtained using this expression were compared with the result of solving the Bloch equations for various values of the pulse duration and the Rabi frequency, which describes the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. It is shown that in the case of long pulses, there is a satisfactory correspondence between the two approaches, but in short-pulse limit and strong saturation, the probability description based on Karplus–Schwinger spectral profile and perturbation theory does not provide satisfactory results.