Cavity-Induced Optical Nonreciprocity Based on Degenerate Two-Level Atoms

We developed and experimentally realized a scheme of optical nonreciprocity (ONR) by using degenerate two-level atoms embedded in an optical ring cavity. For the degenerate transition F_g = 4 ↔ F_e = 3, we first studied the cavity-transmission property in different coupling field configurations and verified that under the strong-coupling regime, the single-dark-state peak formed by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) showed ONR. The stable ground-state Zeeman coherence for Λ-chains involved in the degenerate two-level system was found to be important in the formation of intracavity EIT. However, different from the three-level atom-cavity system, in the degenerate two-level system, the ONR effect based on intracavity EIT occurred only at a low probe intensity, because the cavity-atom coupling strength was weakened in the counter-propagating probe and coupling field configuration. Furthermore, ONR transmission with a high contrast and linewidth-narrowing was experimentally demonstrated.