Kerr-field-induced tunable optical atomic waveguide

Abstract

We propose an efficient scheme for the generation of tunable optical waveguide based on atomic vapor in N -type configuration. We exploit both control field induced transparency and Kerr field induced absorption to produce a flexible probe transparency window otherwise not feasible. We employ a suitable spatial profile of control and Kerr beams to create a high contrast refractive in- dex modulation that holds the key to guiding a weak narrow probe beam. Further we numerically demonstrate that high contrast tunable waveguide permits the propagation of different modes of probe beam to several Rayleigh lengths without diffraction. This efficient guiding of narrow opti- cal beam may have important applications in large density image processing, and high resolution imaging.