Blockade induced resonant enhancement of the optical nonlinearity in a Rydberg medium

POSTER

Abstract

We report on the observation of an enhancement of the optical nonlinearity in a Rydberg gas, which is based on an interaction-induced two-body two-photon resonance under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). A theoretical analysis shows that the enhancement is intimately connected to resonant Rydberg dressing. We elucidate that the resonance is only uncovered when the intermediate state dynamics, that is usually ignored and adiabatically eliminated, is explicitly considered. Experimentally, we quantitatively explore the scaling of the enhancement of the third-order susceptibility with control parameters such as the Rabi frequency of the control beam.

*This work has been supported by the Heidelberg Center for Quantum Dynamics and is part of the DFG Collaborative Research Center SFB 1225 (ISOQUANT) and the DFG Priority Program (GiRyd SPP 1929).

Authors

  • Annika Tebben

    • Heidelberg University

  • Clement Hainaut

    • Heidelberg University

  • Valentin Walther

    • Aarhus University

  • Yongchang Zhang

    • Aarhus University

  • Andre Salzinger

    • Heidelberg University

  • Renato Ferracini Alves

    • Heidelberg University

  • Nithiwadee Thaicharoen

    • Heidelberg University

  • Gerhard Zuern

    • Heidelberg University

  • Thomas Pohl

    • Aarhus University

  • Matthias Weidemüller

    • Heidelberg University, University of Science and Technology of China