Related papers: Saturable absorption or slow light?
Sonoluminescence is explained in terms of quantum radiation by moving interfaces between media of different polarizability. In a stationary dielectric the zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field excite virtual two-photon states…
Absorption spectroscopy is routinely used to characterise chemical and biological samples. For the state-of-the-art in absorption spectroscopy, precision is theoretically limited by shot-noise due to the fundamental Poisson-distribution of…
Lyman limit and damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems probe the distribution of collapsed, cold gas at high redshift. Numerical simulations that incorporate gravity and gas dynamics can predict the abundance of such absorbers in…
The presence of a ``warm absorber'' was first suggested to explain spectral variability in an X-ray spectrum of the radio-quiet QSO MR2251-178. A unified picture, in which X-ray warm absorbers and ``intrinsic'' UV absorbers are the same,…
We report on a single-photon-to-single-atom interface, where a single photon generated by Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC) is absorbed by a single trapped ion. The photon is heralded by its time-correlated partner generated in…
Plasma with a temperature close to the chromospheric one is ejected in solar eruptions. Such plasma can occult some part of emission of compact sources in active regions as well as quiet solar areas. Absorption phenomena can be observed in…
The near-star environment around obscured stars is very dynamic. Many classes of stars show evidence for winds, disks, inflows and outflows with many phenomena occurring simultaneously. These processes are involved in stellar evolution,…
We review some of the recent concepts and their realization exploiting the perfect destructive interference of light in micro and nano structures. One refers to optical structures where the effective absorption can be controlled and…
When a photon is sent onto an atomic ensemble, it interacts collectively with the $N$ atoms of the sample and not simply with one of them. This results in measurable modifications in the scattering rate, the emission diagram or the temporal…
Recently, the photon absorption attracts lots of interest and plays an important role in a variety of applications. Here, we propose a valuable scheme to investigate the perfect photon absorption in a hybrid atom-optomechanical system both…
Many experimental studies of protein deposition on solid surfaces involve alternating adsorption/desorption steps. In this paper, we investigate the effect of a desorption step (separating two adsorption steps) on the kinetics, the…
We have investigated the transport of light through slabs that both scatter and strongly absorb, a situation that occurs in diverse application fields ranging from biomedical optics, powder technology, to solid-state lighting. In…
We propose a scheme for controlling nonlinear coherent perfect absorption (CPA) in a three-level \Lambda-type atom-cavity system. Generally, the normally nonlinear CPA and the bistable CPA can be attained at the different frequencies of an…
A near-minimal instance of optical cooling is experimentally presented wherein the internal-state entropy of a single atom is reduced more than twofold by illuminating it with broadband, incoherent light. Since the rate of optical pumping…
While scattered light conveys most of the information we perceive, scattering may also distort that information before it reaches our detectors. The problem is acute in many applications, such as in high-resolution microscopy of biological…
We report on the storage of light via the phenomenon of Coherent Population Oscillation (CPO) in an atomic cesium vapor at room temperature. In the experiment the optical information of a probe field is stored in the CPO of two ground…
Semiconductor lasers exhibit a wealth of dynamics, from emission of a constant beam of light, to periodic oscillations and excitability. Self-pulsing regimes, where the laser periodically releases a short pulse of light, are particularly…
The coherence properties of broadband down converted light are investigated theoretically and experimentally in both the classical and quantum mechanical frameworks. Although broadband down converted light is one-photon incoherent noise, it…
Super- and subradiance are usually described in the framework of Dicke collective states, which is an ``atomic picture'' in which the electromagnetic field only provides an effective interaction between the atoms. Here, we discuss a…
We theoretically study the propagation of light through a cold atomic medium, where the effects of motion, laser intensity, atomic density, and polarization can all modify the properties of the scattered light. We present two different…