Optical Nonreciprocity of Cold Atom Bragg Mirrors in Motion

Year: 2013

Authors: Horsley S., Wu J., Artoni M., La Rocca G.C.

Autors Affiliation: Electromagnetic and Acoustic Materials Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter,
Exeter EX4 4QL, England;
College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, People’s Republic of China;
European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy and Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, 50019 Firenze, Italy;
Department of Engineering and Information Technology and CNR-IDASC, University of Brescia, 25133 Brescia, Italy;
Scuola Normale Superiore and CNISM, 56126 Pisa, Italy

Abstract: Reciprocity is fundamental to light transport and is a concept that holds also in rather complex systems. Yet, reciprocity can be switched off even in linear, isotropic, and passive media by setting the material structure into motion. In highly dispersive multilayers this leads to a fairly large forward-backward asymmetry in the pulse transmission. Moreover, in multilevel systems, this transport phenomenon can be all-optically enhanced. For atomic multilayer structures made of three-level cold Rb-87 atoms, for instance, forward-backward transmission contrast around 95% can be obtained already at atomic speeds in the meter per second range. The scheme we illustrate may open up avenues for optical isolation that were not previously accessible.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 110 (22)      Pages from: 223602-1  to: 223602-5

More Information: This work is supported by the NNSF of China (11174110), the NBRP of China (2011CB921603), the CRUI-British Council Programs Atoms and Nanostructures and Metamaterials, the IT09L244H5 Azione Integrata MIUR grant, the 2011 Fondo di Ateneo of Brescia University, and the Malicia project (FET-Open Grant No. 265522 of the 7th Framework Programme of the EC). Two of us (M.A. and G.L.R.) would like to thank J.-H. Wu for the hospitality at Jilin University.
KeyWords: Wave-packets; Diode; Lattices; Transmission
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.223602

Citations: 98
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