Connection of off-diagonal radiative-decay coupling to electromagnetically induced transparency and amplification without inversion in a three-level atomic system

Abstract

The equivalence between the off-diagonal radiative-decay coupling (ODRDC) effect in the bare-atom picture of a three-level atomic system [see Cardimona et al., J. Phys. B 15, 55 (1982)] and the electromagnetically inducedtransparency (EIT) effect in the dressed-atom picture [see Imamoglu et al., Opt. Lett. 14, 1344 (1989)] is uncovered and a full comparison of their physical origins is given. The mechanism for both ODRDC and Harris' EIT is found to be a consequence of the quantum interference between a direct absorption path and an indirect absorption path mediated by either a self absorption of spontaneous photons or a Fano-type coupling. A connection is then pointed out between the effects of probe-field gain (PFG) based on an ODRDC process [see Huang et al., Phys. Rev. A 64, 013822 (2001)] and amplification without inversion (AWI) [see Fearn et al., Opt. Commun. 87, 323 (1992)] in the bare-atom picture of a three-level atomic system. The PFG effect is found as a result of transferring electrons between the two upper levels due to the phase-sensitive coherence provided by a laser-induced ODRDC process, while the AWI effect to one of the two probe fields is attributed to its coupling to a strong laser field generating an off-resonant gain through an induced nonlinearity in the other probe field. Both the advantages and disadvantages as well as the limitations of the ODRDC, EIT, PFG, and AWI effects are discussed and compared.