CM-AMO Seminar | Superluminal Ring Laser Gyroscopes - Theory and Experiment

A superluminal laser is a type of laser where the group velocity of the intra-cavity field is much larger than the speed of light in vacuum without violating causality. With this property, superluminal lasers can be utilized for constructing metrological devices such as gyroscopes with enhanced sensitivity. To operate a laser under the superluminal condition, a gain medium, atom vapor for instance, with a tailored dispersion spectrum needs to be employed in the optical resonator. The abnormal dispersion spectrum, typically in the shape of a steep negative dispersion on a normal dispersion background, can be produced through placing all atoms in a quantum state where the electron spin and the nuclear spin are aligned or anti-aligned, followed by coupling these atoms with off-resonance laser beams. In this talk, I will present the approaches for realizing superluminal lasers we developed over the past decade, as well as the theoretical models for simulating them.