Dicke enhanced energy transfer via off resonant coupling y Christopher Black.

Thesis (M.Eng. and S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 108 and index).This thesis examines the dynamics of energy exchange in a model for second-order (indirect) coupling through off-resonant states. Specifically, the model hosts a second-order transfer of energy between two collections of two level systems via an off-resonant oscillator. No first-order transfer of energy is possible because the systems are optically isolated. The entire system is placed into a low-frequency simple-harmonic-oscillator (SHO) which indirectly couples the two collections of systems. Therefore, if the SHO is removed there is no energy exchange. The frequencies of the oscillator and two-level systems are different (offresonant); therefore, the rates of exchange are expected to be quite low. This novel approach achieves measurable coupling through coherent enhancement analogous to Dicke's (1954) super-radiance. This thesis examines the period and rate of energy-transfer between the isolated systems, and attempts to extract patterns that analytically depend upon the number of atoms in each cavity, the coupling strength, the photon level, and the off-resonant ratio parameter. The characterization that follows uses dimensionless quantities and therefore is applicable to many different applications of the model.M.Eng.and S.B