Spatio-spectral control of spontaneous emission

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to control the spatial and spectral properties of spontaneous emission in a four-level atomic system interacting with optical vortices carrying orbital angular momentum, enabling tailored emission behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme for spatio-spectral control of spontaneous emission using atom-vortex beam interactions, highlighting the effects of quantum interference and initial states.

Findings

Achieved spectral-peak narrowing and enhancement.

Demonstrated emission suppression and quenching.

Revealed the influence of optical vortex properties on emission patterns.

Abstract

We propose a scheme aimed at achieving spatio-spectral control over spontaneous emission within a four-level atom-light coupling system interacting with optical vortices carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM). The atom comprises a ground level and two excited states coupled with two laser fields, forming a V subsystem where the upper states exclusively decay to a common fourth state via two channels. By investigating various initial states of the atom and considering the presence or absence of quantum interference in spontaneous emission channels, we analyze how the characteristics of the OAM-carrying vortex beam imprint onto the emission spectrum. The interplay between the optical vortex and the quantum system, including its environment modes, induces a wide variety of spatio-spectral behaviour, including two-dimensional spectral-peak narrowing, spectralpeak enhancement, spectral-peak suppression, and spontaneous emission reduction or quenching in the spatial azimuthal plane. Our findings shed light on the dynamics of atom-vortex beam light interactions and offer insights into the manipulation of emission properties at the quantum level.