Directed spontaneous emission from an extended ensemble of N atoms: timing is everything. uri icon

abstract

  • A collection of static atoms is fixed in a crystal at a low temperature and prepared by a pulse of incident radiation of wave vector . The atoms are well described by an entangled Dicke-like state, in which each atom carries a characteristic phase factor exp(ik0.r(j)), where is the atomic position in the crystal. It is shown that a single photon absorbed by the N atoms will be followed by spontaneous emission in the same direction. Furthermore, phase matched emission is found when one photon is absorbed by N atoms followed by two-photon down-conversion.

published proceedings

  • Phys Rev Lett

author list (cited authors)

  • Scully, M. O., Fry, E. S., Ooi, C., & Wdkiewicz, K.

citation count

  • 337

complete list of authors

  • Scully, Marlan O||Fry, Edward S||Ooi, CH Raymond||Wódkiewicz, Krzysztof

publication date

  • January 2006