| In this thesis we demonstrate that the photonic band edge facilitates fundamental switching effects for resonant two-level atomic systems. In a photonic crystal, a coherent laser beam can drive a two-level atom to inverted atomic states, a phenomenon forbidden in ordinary vacuum. In this process, the atomic system switches from a passive medium to a gain medium as a function of the driving field intensity. We show that the large differential gain exhibited by the atomic medium is robust against non-radiative relaxation and dephasing mechanisms. This switching effect exhibits collective enhancement for a large number of two-level atoms within a cubic wavelength. In this case, the ensemble of atoms sharply switches to a highly inverted state at a very well defined threshold value of the laser field intensity.; We next demonstrate that a probe laser field of prescribed wavelength experiences a substantial differential gain by slight modulations in the control laser field. We suggest that a doped photonic band gap material may, in this sense, be used as an all-optical micro-transistor. We analyze the effects of inhomogeneous line broadening on the probe beam spectrum and demonstrate that further electromagnetic density of states engineering combined with photo-bleaching techniques can be used to both offset the deleterious effects of inhomogeneous broadening and to enlarge the switching bandwidth. We investigate the prospects and challenges in designing microstructures with characteristics required by our proposal. We further show that the switching power and the response time of an all-optical transistor can be dramatically reduced by including collective effects, which also provide a natural mechanism of broadening of the gain spectrum.; Finally, we develop an exact multi-photon scattering theory of resonance fluorescence in frequency-dependent photonic reservoirs. We show that, in the limit of weak driving field, the scattering cross section becomes strongly non-Lorentzian, reflecting the non exponential character of the atomic decay. As the driving field intensity increases, the scattered field acquires new features, consistent with predictions of a dynamical decoupling of the atomic system from the photonic reservoir. |
