Author Description

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency is a coherent optical nonlinearity that renders a medium transparent window over a narrow spectral range within an absorption line. Extreme dispersion is also created within this transparency window which leads to slow light as described below. It is a quantum interference effect that permits the propagation of light through an otherwise opaque atomic medium. Observation of EIT involves two optical fields (highly coherent light sources, such as lasers) which are tuned to interact with three quantum states of a material. The probe field is tuned near resonance between two of the states and measures the absorption spectrum of the transition. A much stronger coupling field is tuned near resonance at a different transition. EIT allows for many new phenomena, including efficient non-linear mixing, slow light, and lasing without inversion. These are just a few of many novel applications. Fundamental and commercial applications of EIT in atomic physics and quantum optics include Lasing without inversion, Slow light, Storage of data, Enabling quantum computation, Optical switches, and All-optical wavelength converters for telecommunications.