Related papers: Maximum refractive index of an atomic medium
A theoretical framework is presented that permits investigations of the relation between inelastic backscattering from microparticles and bulk samples of Raman-active materials. It is based on the Lorentz reciprocity theorem and no…
Research on photonics and metamaterials constantly challenges our intuitive understanding of the behaviour of light. In recent years we have seen negative refraction, focusing of light by a flat slab, a ``perfect'' prism, and an…
We study the multi-periodic oscillations in the spontaneous emission rate of an atom in a medium with refractive index n sandwiched between two parallel mirrors. The oscillations are not obvious in the analytical formula for the rate…
Atoms subject to weak coherent incident light can be treated as coupled classical linear oscillators, supporting subradiant and superradiant collective excitation eigenmodes. We identify the limits of validity of this \emph{linear classical…
The theoretical mechanism for realizing the negative refractive index with {\it electromagnetically induced transparency} (EIT) is studied. It is shown that in a three-level dense atomic gas, there is a frequency band in which the EIT…
Rapid modulation of the electromagnetic response in both time and space creates temporal boundaries in the medium and leads to time-reflection and time-refraction of light and to the eventual formation of the photonic time crystal within…
We demonstrate the capability of block-copolymer templating to tune the refractive indices of functional oxides over a broad range by structuring materials on the 20-1000 atoms scale, with simple one-pot synthesis. The presented method is…
The supposed supraluminal velocities of light are caused above all by interaction of matter with electromagnetic radiation from the sender and/or the own environment. Anti-Stokes frequencies which result in the consequence that the…
Scattering of resonant radiation in a dense two-level medium is studied theoretically with account for local field effects and renormalization of the resonance frequency. Intrinsic optical bistability is viewed as switching between…
A rigorous theory of diffraction scattering from extended objects is proposed. The present theory is based on a multiple asymptotic expansion of an integral equation for the exact wave function in terms of the large parameters of the…
Radiation by the atoms of a resonant medium is a cooperative process in which the medium participates as a whole. In two previous papers \cite{PG00,GP00}, we treated this problem for the case of a medium having slab geometry, which, under…
We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms we observe a…
Quantitative tissue information, like the light scattering properties, is considered as a key player in the detection of cancerous cells in medical diagnosis. A promising method to obtain these data is optical coherence tomography (OCT). In…
Areal density of disorder-induced resonators with a high quality factor, $Q\gg 1$, in a film with fluctuating refraction index is calculated theoretically. We demonstrate that for a given $kl>1$, where $k$ is the light wave vector, and $l$…
We develop an analytical framework to derive upper bounds to light--matter interactions in the optical near field, where applications ranging from spontaneous-emission amplification to greater-than-blackbody heat transfer show…
Despite the quantum nature of the process, collective scattering by dense cold samples of two-level atoms can be interpreted classically describing the sample as a macroscopic object with a complex refractive index. We demonstrate that…
We study the collective motion of atoms confined in an optical lattice operating inside a high finesse ring cavity. A simplified theoretical model for the dynamics of the system is developed upon the assumption of adiabaticity of the atomic…
Two choices are possible for the refractive index of a linear, homogeneous, isotropic, active, dielectric material. Either of the choices is adequate for obtaining frequency-domain solutions for (i) scattering by slabs, spheres, and other…
The response functions of a material characterize its behavior under external stimuli, such as electromagnetic radiation. Such responses may grow linearly with the amplitude of the incident radiation, as is the case of absorption, or may be…
The scattering properties of randomly layered optical media with ${\cal PT}$-symmetric index of refraction are studied using the transfer-matrix method. We find that the transmitance decays exponentially as a function of the system size,…