Manipulation of light and matter on the basis of driving maximal coherence

Manipulation of light and matter on the basis of driving maximal coherence Department of Applied Physics and Chemistry Associated Professor Masayuki KATSURAGAWA katsura@pc.uec.ac.jp http://kiji.pc.uec.ac.jp/
		We have realized that by driving Raman processes adiabatically a high density molecular ensemble (~10²⁰ cm^-3) can be made to coherently vibrate and/or rotate. Such a molecular ensemble can be applied to a light modulator at ultra-high frequencies of ~ GHz ~ 100 THz.
The photograph below shows sideband spectra obtained by modulating single-frequency laser radiation with coherent molecular oscillations, which are adiabatically driven at near-maximal coherence in molecular hydrogen with densities of ~10²⁰ cm^-3. The modulation frequencies are (a) 125 THz, (b) 10 THz and (c) both 10 and 125 THz.

All of the sideband radiations are of a high quality as an actual coherent light source over infrared to near vacuum-ultraviolet wavelengths. We believe this process to be applied as a novel ultra-short pulse laser using these light sources, in which center frequencies and repetition rates are widely tunable. We study various optical processes on the basis of adiabatic production of quantum coherence and their applications to manipulating light-matter interactions.