Spontaneous emission from a three-level atom in two-band photonic crystals

Abstract

We investigate the spontaneous emission from a V three-level atom embedded in two-band isotropic photonic crystals. The dipoles of the two transitions from the two upper levels to the lower level are parallel. Due to the quantum interference between the two transitions and the existence of two bands, the populations in the upper levels display some novel properties, such as anti-trapping and continuous oscillation, which differ from that of a two-level atom (with two bands) and also differ from that if only one band (for three-level atom) is considered. The spontaneous emission field is composed of two parts: localized field and travelling field. The localized field is composed of one or two localized modes, and the travelling field is composed of no, one, two or three propagating modes depending on different conditions. The conditions for different combinations of localized modes and propagating modes are discussed.