Abstract

We consider a V-type three-level system interacting with two coherent continuous wave fields, each of them in exact resonance with the corresponding transition and with arbitrary large Rabi frequencies α and β, The additional parameters are the decay rates of the two excited levels and, to achieve amplification without inversion (AWI), an incoherent pump rate. The effects of the atomic coherences in this system arc usually analyzed with use of the Maxwell–Schrödinger equations in the basis of the bare atomic states. This treatment gives a quantitative description of the experimental behavior, but does not provide a physical interpretation.

© 1997 Optical Society of America