Controlling the optical properties of transparent media by mixing active and passive resonances

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified, quantum-coherence-independent method for engineering optical materials with tunable properties like transparency, negative permittivity, and various dispersion characteristics by mixing active and passive resonant media.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to control optical properties through material mixing, bypassing the need for quantum coherence, enabling practical realization of diverse optical phenomena.

Findings

Achieves large and small indices of refraction

Realizes negative permittivity ($ extless 0$)

Maintains transparency across various dispersion regimes

Abstract

Novel optical phenomena, including electromagnetically induced transparency, slow light, superluminal light propagation, have recently been demonstrated in diverse physical implementations. These phenomena are challenging to realize in practical systems because they require quantum coherence as well as careful preparation and control of prescribed quantum states. Here we present a unified approach to engineering optical materials that exhibit these phenomena by using mixtures of active and passive optical materials at frequencies near their resonances. Our approach does not depend on quantum coherence and can realize large and small (much less than 1) indices of refraction and negative permittivity ($\epsilon<0$), normal and anomalous dispersion, all while maintaining transparency.