Single-atom laser: Coherent and nonclassical effects in the regime of a strong atom-field correlation

Kilin, S. Ya.; Karlovich, T. B.

doi:10.1134/1.1528672

Cited by 37 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…B for decreasing l indicates the continuous passage away from the domain of conventional laser operation and into a regime of strong coupling where various nonclassical features emerge (e.g., g (2) (0) < 1), as predicted in prior treatments of one-atom lasers [2,[4][5][6][7][9][10][11][12]. Figure B(d) provides a global perspective of some of these characteristics over a wider range of the pump intensity I 3 for l = l 0 relevant to our experiment.…”

Section: Comparison Of Semiclassical and Quantum Theories For A Fmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Although a number of theoretical treatments related to a one-atom laser have appeared in the literature [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], this prior work has not been specific to the parameter range of our experiment as reported in Ref. [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…[1], a one-atom laser operated in a regime of strong coupling with (N 0 , n 0 ) 1 will evidence qualitatively different characteristics than those of more familiar conventional lasers. The question then arises as how best to identify a laser in this new regime, with diverse criteria suggested and analyzed in prior work on one-atom lasers [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The perspective that we adopt here is to trace the lineage of our one-atom laser from a conventional regime continuously into the domain of strong coupling.…”

Section: Comparison Of Semiclassical and Quantum Theories For A Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

McKeever

Boca

Boozer

et al. 2003

Nature

580

488

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Section: Comparison Of Semiclassical and Quantum Theories For A Fmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Comparison Of Semiclassical and Quantum Theories For A Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

McKeever

Boca

Boozer

et al. 2003

Nature

580

488

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“…In this march toward ever smaller systems, an intriguing possibility is that a laser might be obtained with a single atom in an optical cavity, as was considered in the seminal work of Mu and Savage [1] and has since been extensively analyzed [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. In this Letter we report an experiment that advances this quest to its conceptual limit, namely the operation of a one-atom laser in a regime for which (N 0 , n 0 ) ≪ 1.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

A one-atom laser in a regime of strong coupling

McKeever¹,

Boca²,

Boozer³

et al. 2003

Frontiers in Optics

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Although conventional lasers operate with a large number of intracavity atoms, the lasing properties of a single atom in a resonant cavity have been theoretically investigated for more than a decade [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. In this Letter we report the experimental realization of such a one-atom laser operated in a regime of strong coupling. Our experiment exploits recent advances in cavity quantum electrodynamics that allow one atom to be isolated in an optical cavity in a regime for which one photon is sufficient to saturate the atomic transition [12]. In this regime the observed characteristics of the atom-cavity system are qualitatively different from those of the familiar many atom case. Specifically, we present measurements of intracavity photon number versus pump intensity that exhibit "thresholdless" behavior, and infer that the output flux from the cavity mode exceeds that from atomic fluorescence by more than tenfold. Observations of the second-order intensity correlation function g (2) (τ ) demonstrate that our one-atom laser generates manifestly quantum (i.e., nonclassical) light that exhibits both photon antibunching g (2) (0) < g (2) (τ ) and sub-Poissonian photon statistics g (2) (0) < 1.An important trend in modern science is to push macroscopic physical systems to ever smaller sizes, eventually into the microscopic realm. Lasers are one important example of this progression, having moved from table-top systems to microscopic devices that are ubiquitous in science and technology. However, even over this remarkable span of implementations, lasers are typically realized with large atom and photon numbers in a domain of weak coupling for which individual quanta have negligible impact on the system dynamics. Usual laser theories therefore rely on system-size expansions in inverse powers of critical atom and photon numbers (N 0 , n 0 ) ≫ 1, and arrive at a consistent form for the laser characteristics [13,14,15,16,17]. By contrast, over the past twenty years, technical advances on various fronts have pushed laser operation to regimes of ever smaller atom and photon number, pressing toward the limit of strong coupling for which (N 0 , n 0 ) ≪ 1 [18]. Significant milestones include the realization of one and two-photon micromasers [19,20,21], as well as novel microlasers in atomic and condensed matter systems [22,23,24].In this march toward ever smaller systems, an intriguing possibility is that a laser might be obtained with a single atom in an optical cavity, as was considered in the is provided by the field Ω3, while recycling of the lower level F = 4 is achieved by way of the field Ω4 (4 → 4 ′ ) and spontaneous decay back to F = 3. Decay (3 ′ , 4 ′ ) → (3, 4) is also included in our model. Relevant cavity parameters are length l0 = 42.2 µm, waist w0 = 23.6 µm, and finesse F = 4.2 × 10 5 at λD 2 = 852 nm.

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“…An optically driven single atom bound to a resonant cavity is, in some sense, a laser extrapolated to its fundamental, conceptual limit (theoretical descriptions of such devices have existed for a number of years [58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]). In this analogy, the single atom serves as a gain medium which, as it 'lases', couples photons into the resonant mode of the cavity.…”

Section: The One-atom Lasermentioning

confidence: 99%

Trapped atoms in cavity QED: coupling quantized light and matter

Miller

Northup

Birnbaum

et al. 2005

J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys.

374

377

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On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis, we reflect on the development and current state of research in cavity quantum electrodynamics in the optical domain. Cavity QED is a field which undeniably traces its origins to Einstein's seminal work on the statistical theory of light and the nature of its quantized interaction with matter. In this paper, we emphasize the development of techniques for the confinement of atoms strongly coupled to high-finesse resonators and the experiments which these techniques enable.(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) From Einstein to cavity QEDIn the years prior to his seminal 1905 papers, Albert Einstein had given much thought to the statistical properties of electromagnetic fields [1], especially with regard to the theory of black-body radiation developed by Max Planck [2]. Einstein realized that the quantization of light-particularly the creation and annihilation of 'light quanta'-is something more fundamental than a tacit consequence of the assumption that the total energy of a black-body is discretely distributed between a set of microstates. Beginning in 1905 with On a heuristic point of view about the creation and conversion of light [3] and in four subsequent papers on quantization [4][5][6][7], he laid the foundations of the 'old quantum theory ' [8], summarized in what is commonly referred to as the 'light quantization hypothesis':. . . the energy of a light ray emitted from a point [is] not continuously distributed over an ever increasing space, but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units [3].

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Single-atom laser: Coherent and nonclassical effects in the regime of a strong atom-field correlation

Cited by 37 publications

References 12 publications

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

A one-atom laser in a regime of strong coupling

Trapped atoms in cavity QED: coupling quantized light and matter

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