Inhomogeneity Enhanced Signatures of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

Abstract We investigate the propagation of a weak probe and a strong couple(pump) beam in an inhomogenous medium exhibiting Electromagnetically Induced Trans-parency(EIT) described by the Maxwell-Bloch equation. Unlike the homogenous case, the density matrix elements vary with the direction of pulse propagation. Employing the Gauge transformation approach, we have generated bright soli-tons for the weak probe and strong pump. The collisional dynamics of bright solitons shows that the presence of inhomogeneity makes the signatures of EIT more pronounced unlike the homogeneous counterpart. In particular, the colli-sional dynamics shows that one can not only slow down the laser pulses, but also can stop them literally leading to better optical storage. In addition, one also witnesses probe pulse broadening arising by virtue of space dependent density matrix showing that the medium becomes transparent to the probe over a wide range of frequencies.