The resonant absorption, emission, and scattering of light are the fundamental optical processes that have been used both to probe matter and to manipulate light itself. In the last decade there has been essential progress in coherent control of both linear and nonlinear optical responses based on resonant excitation of atomic coherence in multilevel quantum systems. Some interesting and useful phenomena, resulting from coherent control of absorption and the group index, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, lasing without inversion, and ultra-slow group velocity of light have been widely studied. This work is focused on coherent control of refractive index and resonant fluorescence in multilevel medium. We suggest two promising schemes for resonant enhancement of the refractive index with eliminated absorption and propose their implementation in transition element doped crystals with excited state absorption and in a cell of Rb atoms at natural abundance. We show how to use one of these schemes for spatial variation of the refractive index via its periodic resonant increase/decrease, remarkably keeping at the same time zero absorption/gain. It opens the way to production of transparent photonic structures (such as distributed Bragg reflectors, holey fibers, or photonic crystals) in a homogeneous resonant atomic media such as dielectrics with homogeneously distributed impurities, atomic, or molecular gases. These optically produced photonic structures could easily be controlled (including switching on/off, changing amplitude and period of modulation) and would be highly selective in frequency, naturally limited by the width of the optical resonance. We also derive the optical fluorescence spectra of a three-level medium driven by two coherent fields at the adjacent transitions in a general case when all three transitions are allowed. We show that coherent driving can efficiently control the distribution of intensities between the fluorescent channels. In particular, the total intensity of fluorescence at the transition which is not driven by the optical fields may essentially exceed the fluorescence intensity at the driven transitions under the condition of two-photon resonance. This counter-intuitive effect is due to depletion of the intermediate state via atomic interference.

Finite-Difference Time-Domain method (FDTD) is based on numerical solution of Maxwell's equations, nowadays widely used for simulating optical response of photonic structures. This paper provides brief introduction to the FDTD method and several important extensions which make the basic code much more versatile. In order to broaden analysis of photonic structures, transfer matrix method (TMM) is also involved. The code is firstly tested using simple model structures which optical response might be compared with different numerical or even analytical approaches. Debugged code is used to improve photonic crystals for enhanced sensitivity of biosensing devices based on refractive index changes of sensed medium. Last but not the least, properties (sensitivity and Q-factor of resonant peak) of holey waveguide are investigated in one-, two- and three-dimensional simulation. It is shown here, that even this simple structure may compete with complex photonic crystals in the field of biosensors. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Sub-surface modification using a frequency doubled Ti: Sapphire femtosecond (fs) laser at 1kHz repetition rate, producing 100-fs pulse duration at 400nm, is studied in order to fabricate optical components within non-photosensitised polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). This thesis explores the feasibility of producing three-dimensional optical devices in bulk polymers and polymer optical fibre (POF) using fs laser direct-writing techniques. For effective and optimal structuring, the laser writing parameters and focusing conditions, such as focusing depth, translation speed, and accumulated fluence are investigated by means of photo-modification thresholds; structural changes in dimensions and morphologies; and the magnitude of the refractive index modulation. The highest refractive index change is 3.2x10^(-3) achieved by using a dry (non-immersion) 0.45-NA objective for a single laser scan. Variations in damage threshold with focusing depths are attributed to a combination of material absorption or surface scattering of light due to contamination or surface imperfections, as well as oxygen diffusion and spherical aberration. Distortion of the laser-induced feature size and shape due to spherical aberrations is controlled and compensated by adjusting the laser power near the damage threshold. Permanent refractive index structures with cross-sectional dimensions of 2μm by 0.9μm and 3μm by 1.4μm are demonstrated at depths of 300μm and 500μm below the surface, resulting in the axial/ lateral ratio of 2.2 and 2.1, respectively. A novel phenomenon relevant to effects of translation speed on the fs laser modification is observed for the first time. As translation speeds reduce from 1.2 to 0.6mm/s, the optical damage threshold power decreases by 6μW, whilst other writing conditions remain constant. However, the damage threshold increases by 74μW with decreasing speeds from 0.6 to 0.35mm/s. This significant increase in threshold power enables inscription of refractive index gratings <5μm below the surface, because irradiation on the surface or near the surface initiates ablation rather than refractive index changes, and this forms a limit for writing useful structures. Compensating for this limit by using appropriate writing parameters highlights the potential of fabricating three-dimensional integrated optical circuits in thin (100μm) polymer substrates. Finally, highly localised fabrication of long period gratings into step-index single mode polymer fibres is demonstrated by removing distortion effects due to the curved surface. The distortion is compensated by sandwiching the fibre with two flat PMMA sheets, between which index-matching oil (n=1.5) is injected. This arrangement enables precise laser micro-structuring with flat interfaces and continuous inner material. The first demonstration of a 250-μm-period fibre grating, resulting in attenuation bands in the visible spectral region at 613, 633, 728, 816, 853, 877 and 900nm, is presented.