Abstract

Electro magnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a technique for making an otherwise optically thick or refractively thick medium transparent to laser radiation. The essence of the effect is a quantum interference that is destructive in absorption and constructive in emission. In experiments in Pb vapor, we are able to propagate stable, high-quality laser beams through on-resonance opacities as large as αL = 10⁵. When off resonance, we show (he élimination of optical self-focusing and filament formation.

© 1997 Optical Society of America