A narrow window of Rabi frequency for competition between electromagnetically induced transparency and Raman absorption

This investigation clarifies the transition phenomenon between the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Raman absorption in a ladder-type system of Doppler-broadened cesium vapor. A competition window of this transition was found to be as narrow as 2 MHz defined by the probe Rabi frequency. For a weak probe, the spectrum of EIT associated with quantum interference suggests that the effect of the Doppler velocity on the spectrum is negligible. When the Rabi frequency of the probe becomes comparable with the effective decay rate, an electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) dip emerges at the center of the power broadened EIT peak. While the Rabi frequency of the probe exceeds the effective decay rate, decoherence that is generated by the intensified probe field occurs and Raman absorption dominates the interaction process, yielding a pure absorption spectrum; the Doppler velocity plays an important role in the interaction. A theory that is based on density matrix simulation, with or without the Doppler effect, can qualitatively fit the experimental data. In this work, the coherence of atom-photon interactions is created or destroyed using the probe Rabi frequency as a decoherence source.