Demonstration of lasers without inversion
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Atomic coherence and interference was shown to lead to such intriguing phenomena as electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without population inversion (LWI), and resonant enhancement of refractive index accompanied by vanishing absorption. The present paper reports the first experimental observation of LWI oscillation and the first demonstration of index enhancement. Both experiments were suggested and modeled by a detailed theoretical analysis that revealed many surprising features present in multilevel driven atomic systems. In particular, it is found that multilevel optical pumping, hyperfine, and Zeeman structure can dramatically affect the optical properties of the phase-coherent atomic systems.
