Transfer of optical vortices in a coherently-prepared rare-earth-ion-doped solid

Abstract

Optical vortices carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light have earned much attention due to their potential applications in the classical and quantum physics. Quantum coherence has been proved to be an important tool for controlling the behavior of light fields. Developing the manipulation method of optical vortices is very useful for high-dimensional information processing encoded with OAM. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the transfer of optical vortices between different light modes in a coherently-prepared solid-state medium. Utilizing the technique of fractional stimulated Raman passage (f-STIRAP), the experimental medium is prepared into a coherent superposition of two ground states. By applying a probe vortex beam to scatter the induced atomic coherence, a new signal is generated with the same vorticity as that of the input probe field. Furthermore, the vortex beams are used as the f-STIRAP preparation pulses, and the helical phases of the vortex beams are mapped into the coherent superposition state. Subsequently, the optical vortices of the preparation pulses are transferred to a new light mode by using the probe beam to interact with the coherent medium. The new signal field accumulates the total topological charges of the applied fields in this coherent process. Such an experimental demonstration will enrich the interactions between optical vortices and matter, and can be helpful in further information processing.