Eur. Phys. J. D 41, 403-411 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00228-6

The influence on atomic decay by inserting a LHM layer into an ordinary one dimensional multi-layer structure

¹ Department of Physics, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, P.R. China
² Department of Physics, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
³ Department of Physics, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330047, P.R. China
⁴ Key Laboratory of Quantum Communication and Quantum Computation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a xx_jj_pp1980@yahoo.com.cn

Received: 27 February 2006
Revised: 5 June 2006
Published online: 13 October 2006

Abstract

Inserting left-handed material (LHM) layers into a one dimensional structure can influence the spontaneous emission (SpE) of a two-level atom. This has been investigated, starting from the simplest case of a three-layer system, where we find the reflected field (atom can “see”) passing through LHM layer is stronger than that through the corresponding normal layer. Indeed the induced decay is more strongly influenced by reflected field passing through LHM layer. Based on this and after further analysis of reflectivity, we find that, a quarter photonic crystal (PC) composed of alternately LHM and RHM can inhibit the atomic spontaneous emission more intensely compared to an ordinary PC.