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SYKM: Lichtausbreitung in kohärent präparierten Medien

SYKM 1: Lichtausbreitung in kohärent präparierten Medien I

SYKM 1.3: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 5, 2009, 15:00–15:30, VMP 6 HS-D

Light interactions in Rydberg ensembles — •Charles Adams — Department of Physics, Durham University, UK

Atoms in highly excited Rydberg states exhibit strong interactions over distance scales of a few microns. In our work we exploit the enhanced sensitivity of Rydberg states to control the propagation of light through an atomic ensemble. For example, if the atoms are prepared in a dark state corresponding to a superposition of ground and Rydberg states [1] the medium acquires a giant electro-optic effect many orders of magnitude larger than other systems [2]. In ultra-cold ensembles we have observed Rydberg dark states with linewidths of 200 kHz and have demonstrated the on-set of interactions effects as the Rydberg population is increased [3]. Our eventual goal is to exploit this interaction induced non-linearity to control pulse propagation at the single photon level.

[1] AK Mohapatra et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 113003 (2007). [2] AK Mohapatra et al. Nature Phys. 4, 890 (2008). [3] KJ Weatherill et al. J. Phys. B 41, 201002 (2008).