Soliton Solutions for High-Bandwidth Optical Pulse Storage and Retrieval

Quantum-optical information processing in material systems requires on-demand manipulation and precision control techniques. Previous implementations of optical pulse control have mostly been limited to weak, narrowband probe fields, often using a modified form of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT). We propose optical pulse control in a contrasting regime with high-bandwidth optical pulses, enabling higher clock-rates and on-demand fast pulse switching. Our novel solutions exploit the coherent interaction between short, strong pulses and resonant media (such as a cloud of ultra-cold atoms) to store, manipulate, and retrieve high-bandwidth optical pulse information.;The evolution equations that model such short pulse propagation are inherently nonlinear and they govern both amplitudes and phases of the propagating field and the dielectric medium. They cannot be modeled by population rate equations or simplified with steady-state assumptions. Nonlinear evolution equations do not yield solutions easily and using them to characterize the physics at hand typically requires complementary analytical and numerical approaches. We take both approaches here, using analytical methods and our own numerical integration code. For uniform and infinitely extended media we generate novel three-pulse soliton solutions: robust, nonlinear waves with the unique property of preserving their shape under interaction (or "collision"). This important property enables one high-bandwidth soliton to push another from one location in an atomic cloud to another, predictably and nondestructively.;We then also probe the practical utility of our specialized infinite-extent solutions by numerically solving the same nonlinear evolution equations for a variety of initial pulse shapes and strengths. Our numerical simulations confirm that our novel soliton solutions provide appropriate control parameters, including pulse storage locations and pulse sequencing, even in finite media under non-idealized initial conditions. Combining our numerical and analytic results, we propose a scheme to manipulate high-bandwidth optical information and achieve on-demand, high-fidelity retrieval.