The efficiency of a nonlinear optical process is proportional to the interaction time. We report a scheme of all-optical switching based on two motionless light pulses via the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency. One pulse was stopped as the stationary light pulse (SLP) and the other was stopped as stored light. The time of their interaction via the medium can be prolonged and, hence, the optical nonlinearity is greatly enhanced. Using a large optical density (OD) of 190, we achieved a very long interaction time of 6.9 μs. This can be analogous to the scheme of trapping light pulses by an optical cavity with a Q factor of 8×109. With the approach of using moving light pulses in the best situation, a switch can only be activated at 2 photons per atomic absorption cross section. With the approach of employing a SLP and a stored light pulse, a switch at only 0.56 photons was achieved and the efficiency is significantly improved. Moreover, the simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental data and show that the efficiency can be further improved by increasing the OD of the medium. Our work advances the technology in quantum information manipulation utilizing photons.

ABSTRACT. Lipid is an important energy source and essential component for plasma and organelle membranes in all kinds of cells. Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy is a label-free and nonlinear optical technique that can be used to monitor the lipid distribution in live organisms. Here, we utilize CARS microscopy to investigate the pattern of lipid droplets in two live Caenorhabditis elegans mutants (fat-2 and fat-3). The CARS images showed a striking decrease in the size, number, and content of lipid droplets in the fat-2 mutant but a slight difference in the fat-3 mutant as compared with the wild-type worm. Moreover, a nondroplet-like structure with enhanced CARS signal was detected for the first time in the uterus of fat-2 and fat-3 mutants. In addition, transgenic fat-2 mutant expressing a GFP fusion protein of vitellogenin-2 (a yolk lipoprotein) revealed that the enhanced CARS signal colocalized with the GFP signal, which suggests that the nondroplet-like structure is primarily due to the accumulation of yolk lipoproteins. Together, this study implies that CARS microscopy is a potential tool to study the distribution of yolk lipoproteins, in addition to lipid droplets, in live animals.

We observed electromagnetically induced transparency-based four-wave mixing (FWM) in the pulsed regime at low light levels. The FWM conversion efficiency of 3.8(9)% was observed in a four-level system of cold 87Rb atoms using a driving laser pulse with a peak intensity of ≈80 μW/cm2, corresponding to an energy of ≈60 photons per atomic cross section. Comparison between the experimental data and the theoretical predictions proposed by Harris and Hau [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999)] showed good agreement. Additionally, a high conversion efficiency of 46(2)% was demonstrated when applying this scheme using a driving laser intensity of ≈1.8 mW/cm2. According to our theoretical predictions, this FWM scheme can achieve a conversion efficiency of nearly 100% when using a dense medium with an optical depth of 500.

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