Dicke narrowing assisted atomic waveguide: achieving high-contrast and narrow core

Abstract

We present a theoretical demonstration of an effective method to construct a non-diffracting Bessel beam assisted optical waveguide within an inhomogeneously broadened vapor medium composed of active 87Rb atoms and inactive buffer gas atoms. We exploit the sensitive behaviour of the Bessel beam coupled between highly excited Rydberg states to create distinctly responsive and tunable atomic waveguide. The buffer gas induced collision further manipulates the features of the waveguide by widening the spatial transparency window and enhancing the contrast of the refractive index. We numerically solve Maxwell’s equations to demonstrate diffractionless propagation of 5 \(\mu m\) narrow paraxial light beams of arbitrary mode to several Rayleigh lengths. The presence of the buffer gas significantly enhances output intensity of the diffraction controlled light beam from 10% to 54%. This efficient diffraction elimination technique has important applications in high-resolution imaging and high-density optical communication.