Selective excitation in a three-state system using a hybrid adiabatic-nonadiabatic interaction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for selective excitation of a three-level atomic system using a hybrid adiabatic-nonadiabatic interaction controlled by spectral holes in chirped pulses, demonstrated with rubidium atoms.

Contribution

The study presents a novel technique combining adiabatic and nonadiabatic transitions via spectral hole burning to achieve selective excitation in three-level systems.

Findings

Effective two-level system achieved through spectral hole manipulation.

Experimental validation with rubidium atoms shows good agreement with theory.

Laser intensity and spectral hole position enable control over excitation pathways.

Abstract

The chirped-pulse interaction in the adiabatic coupling regime induces cyclic permutations of the energy states of a three-level system in the $V$-type configuration, which process is known as the three-level chirped rapid adiabatic passage. Here we show that a spectral hole in a chirped pulse can turn on and off one of the two adiabatic crossing points of this process, reducing the system to an effective two-level system. The given hybrid adiabatic-nonadiabatic transition results in selective excitation of the three-level system, controlled by the laser intensity and spectral position of the hole as well as the sign of the chirp parameter. Experiments are performed with shaped femtosecond laser pulses and the three lowest energy-levels (5S$_{1/2}$, 5P$_{1/2}$, and 5P$_{3/2}$) of atomic rubidium ($^{85}$Rb), of which the result shows good agreement with the theoretically analyzed dynamics. The result indicates that our method, being combined with the ordinary chirped-RAP, implements an adiabatic transitions between the two excited states. Furthermore the laser intensity-dependent control may have applications including selective excitations of atoms or ions arranged in space when being used in conjunction with laser beam profile programming.