Quantum treatment of cavity-assisted entanglement of three-level atoms and two fields in an electromagnetically-induced-transparency configuration

Abstract

We examine the field-field and field-atom entanglements generated by \ensuremath{\Lambda}-type three-level atoms placed in an optical cavity driven above threshold by two coherent input optical fields. It is shown that under realistic experimental conditions entanglement between the two output cavity fields as well as between the fields and the atoms can be achieved when the two cavity fields are both one- and two-photon (Raman) resonant with the atomic transitions, as in the configuration for electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The entanglement has similar features to pump-signal-idler three-color entanglement in an above-threshold optical parametric oscillator [Villar et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 140504 (2006)]. This cavity-enhanced atom-field cooperative coupling could enable convenient and efficient generation of bright, nondegenerate, narrow-band entangled fields, which may find potential applications in realistic quantum communications and networking protocols.