Experimental Studies of Light Propagation and Storage in Warm Atomic Gases

We report on an experimental study of slow pulse propagation and polarization storage of light in an atomic vapour for pulse durations ranging from several μs to 100 μs, for non-zero magnetic fields, for temperatures ranging from 65 to 90 °C and for two different rubidium isotopes. The results confirm the presence of the electromagnetically induced transparency window as predicted by Lukin (1997 Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 2959). We show that time-dependent optical rotation can mask the storage of light signal, and demonstrate storage of light for the 85Rb isotope