Electromagnetically induced gratings created by extremely short non-overlapping pulses of light in a three-level resonant mediu

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates, through numerical solutions of Maxwell-Bloch equations, that ultrafast population gratings can be generated and controlled in a three-level medium using extremely short, non-overlapping pulses without relying on previous simplifying approximations.

Contribution

It extends previous two-level models by showing that three-level systems can also produce and control population gratings with ultrashort pulses, using more accurate numerical methods.

Findings

Population gratings can be generated in three-level media.

Control of gratings is possible with non-overlapping pulses.

The three-level model confirms previous two-level results.

Abstract

In a fixed spectral range, single- and half-cycle electromagnetic pulses have the shortest duration. Half-cycle pulses are promising tools for ultrafast control of quantum systems. Previously, the possibility of using a sequence of single- and half-cycle attosecond pulses to generate and ultrafast control light-induced population difference gratings has been demonstrated. However, such studies have been carried out using different approximations. For example, when the medium is modelled in the two-level approximation. In this paper, based on the numerical solution of the system of Maxwell-Bloch equations, it is shown that it is possible to generate and control population gratings in a three-level medium without using the approximations used in previous studies. It is shown that taking into account the additional level of the medium does not lead to a violation of the effect of generating such gratings. This extends the applicability of previous results.