Photon trapping in cavity quantum electrodynamics

We propose and analyze a scheme for photon trapping in an optical resonator coupled with two-level atoms. We show that when the cavity is excited by two identical light fields from two ends of the cavity respectively, the output light from the cavity is suppressed while the intra-cavity light field is near the maximum due to the excitation of the polariton state of the coupled cavity and atom system. We also present methods for the direct probing of the trapped polariton state. The photon trapping is manifested by the destructive interference of the transmitted light and the incident light. Such photon trapping is quite generic and should be observable experimentally in a variety of cavity quantum electrodynamics systems.