We observe and characterize intrinsic optical bistability in a dilute Rydberg vapor. The bistability is characterized by sharp jumps between states of low and high Rydberg occupancy with jump-up and -down positions displaying hysteresis depending on the direction in which the control parameter is changed. We find that the shift in frequency of the jump point scales with the fourth power of the principal quantum number. Also, the width of the hysteresis window increases with increasing principal quantum number, before reaching a peak and then closing again. The experimental results are consistent with predictions from a simple theoretical model based on semiclassical Maxwell–Bloch equations including the effects of interaction-induced broadening and level shifts. These results provide insight into the dynamics of driven dissipative systems.

There are few demonstrated examples of phase transitions that may be driven directly by terahertz frequency electric fields, and those that are known require field strengths exceeding 1 MV cm⁻¹. Here we report a non-equilibrium phase transition driven by a weak (≪1 V cm⁻¹), continuous-wave terahertz electric field. The system consists of room temperature caesium vapour under continuous optical excitation to a high-lying Rydberg state, which is resonantly coupled to a nearby level by the terahertz electric field. We use a simple model to understand the underlying physical behaviour, and we demonstrate two protocols to exploit the phase transition as a narrowband terahertz detector: the first with a fast (20 μs) non-linear response to nano-Watts of incident radiation, and the second with a linearised response and effective noise equivalent power ≤1 pW Hz^−1/2. The work opens the door to a class of terahertz devices controlled with low-field intensities and operating in a room temperature environment.

We present, experimentally and theoretically, a scheme for dressed-state electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a three-step cascade system in which a four-level system is mapped into an effective three-level system. Theoretical analysis reveals that the scheme provides coherent-state control via adiabatic following and a generalized protocol for light storage in uniform phase spin-waves that are insensitive to motional dephasing. The three-step driving enables a number of other features, including spatial selectivity of the excitation region within the atomic medium, and kick-free and Doppler-free excitation that produces narrow resonances in thermal vapor. As a proof of concept, we present an experimental demonstration of the generalized EIT scheme using the $6S_{1/2}\to 6P_{3/2}\to 7S_{1/2}\to 8P_{1/2}$ excitation path in thermal cesium vapor. This technique could be applied to cold and thermal ensembles to enable longer storage times for Rydberg polaritons.

We report on the observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and absorption (EIA) of highly excited Rydberg states in thermal Cs vapor using a four-step excitation scheme. The advantage of this four-step scheme is that the final transition to the Rydberg state has a large dipole moment and one can achieve similar Rabi frequencies to two- or three-step excitation schemes using two orders of magnitude less laser power. This scheme enables new applications such as dephasing free Rydberg excitation. The observed lineshapes are in good agreement with simulations based on multilevel optical Bloch equations.