Interaction of Phase-Modulated Femtosecond Pulses with an Optically Dense Quasi-Resonant Medium of Rubidium Vapors

Abstract

For the first time, it is demonstrated that the magnitude and sign of the effect of “spectral condensation” of a laser pulse at the resonant-transition frequency of a dense medium can be controlled by changing the driving-pulse parameters (chirp, pulse width, and pulse amplitude). In the process of this, importantly, the driving-pulse energy and spectrum remain unchanged. Direct time-resolved measurements revealed an oscillatory character of the induced superradiance of rubidium vapors representing a long train of decaying short pulses. The width and repetition rate of the pulses in the train are determined by atomic density N₀ of the medium, while the width of an entire superradiance pulse (10 ps) is considerably larger than that of the driving laser pulse (50 fs).