Zhi-Qiang ZENG^1,2, Bang-Pin HOU^3*, Zeng-Hui GAO^1,2, and Ya-Ping YANG⁴

¹College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Yibin University, Yibin 644000, China ²Computational Physics Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Yibin University, Yibin 644000, China ³College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Sichuan Normal University, Chendu 610066, China ⁴Department of Physics, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

(Received October 8, 2011; Revised November 28, 2011; Accepted January 10, 2012)

In this paper, the effects of the squeezed vacuum (SV) on the transient response in a ∨-type three-level atomic medium are investigated. We find that the properties of transient process can be greatly affected by the SV whether the vacuum-induced coherence (VIC) exists or not. The combined influence of the SV and the VIC can dramatically modify the transient absorption and gain. Especially, the transient gain can be almost eliminated in the absence of VIC. And the response time from the transient to the steady situation is dependent on the SV. When including the VIC, the transient and steady optical properties display a reverse variation with the SV. Besides, it is shown that the considerable steady state population without inversion can be always induced by the SV.

Key words: transient response, squeezed vacuum, mean photon number, relative phase

^*E-mail address: zhiqiang_zeng@163.com