Theoretical study of a memory-based optical converter with degenerate Zeeman states

Abstract

Coherent optical memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) offers a convenient way to convert the frequency or polarization of an optical probe pulse by storing in one $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ system and retrieving in another $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ system. We present a theoretical study on the efficiency variation of such an EIT-memory-based optical converter in an atomic system with degenerate Zeeman states. Based on the Maxwell-Bloch equation, we obtain an approximate analytic solution for the converted light pulses which clarifies that two major factors affect the efficiency of the converted pulses. The first one is the finite bandwidth effect of the pulses and the difference in the delay-bandwidth product of the writing and reading channel due to the difference in the transition dipole moment. The second one is the mismatch between the stored ground-state coherence and the ratio of the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for the probe and control transition in the reading channel, which results in a nonadiabatic energy loss. To correspond to real experimental conditions, we also perform a numerical calculation of the variation in conversion efficiency versus the Zeeman population distribution under the Zeeman-state optical pumping in storing a ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{+}$-polarized pulse and retrieving with ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ polarization in cesium atoms. Our work provides essential physical insights and quantitative knowledge for the development of a coherent optical converter based on EIT-memory.