Propagation of femtosecond chirped Gaussian pulse in dense three-level Λ-type atomic medium

Abstract

We investigate propagation of femtosecond chirped Gaussian laser pulse in a dense three-level Λ-type atomic medium by using the numerical solution of the full Maxwell-Bloch equations without the slowly varying envelope and the rotating-wave approximations, and the solution is obtained by PC-FDTD method. It is shown that, variation of the sign and size of the chirp coefficient has considerable effect on pulse propagation property, and the effect is closely relative to size of the pulse area. When the area of chirped pulse is smaller than 4π, splitting doesn’t occur and the chirped pulse evolves gradually to an approximate normal Gaussian pulse (C=0), and this characteristic doesn’t vary with the chirp coefficient varying. However, variation of the chirp coefficient will changed the amplitude and group velocity of the pulse. For the positive chirp(C>0), amplitude and group velocity of the pulse decrease with chirp coefficient increasing, for the negative chirp(CC increasing. Both the chirped pulses with area equal to larger than 4π will split into sub-pulses of different numbers and shapes, the time and number of the pulse splitting will be determined by the sign and size of the chirp coefficient. But in the two cases, the pulse splitting patterns are much different, and the effects of the coefficient are also different. When the pulse area equals 4π, larger chirp coefficient will lead to increased sub-pulse number, but when the pulse area is larger than 4π, larger chirp coefficient will lead to decreased sub-pulse number. In addition, regardless of pulse area being larger or smaller, changing sign and size of the chirp coefficient always produces obvious effect on the atomic population.