QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS IN PHOTONIC BAND-GAPS - ATOMIC-BEAM INTERACTION WITH A DEFECT MODE

A structural defect in a two-dimensionally periodic dielectric structure may form a local field mode within a photonic band gap in which no other E-polarized field modes exist. We show that such a defect mode can give rise to new quantum-electrodynamic effects in resonant field-atom interaction, owing to the spatially modulated standing-wave character of its field. Atomic-beam motion is considered (a) along an interplanar defect and (b) through a spherical defect. The resonant interaction of a moving two-level atom with the quantized field of these defects can yield hitherto unknown features-oscillatory patterns of the atomic population inversion, fluorescence spectra, and nonclassical field states-that are essentially different from their counterparts in the standard Jaynes-Cummings model, which holds for atomic-beam motion in a spatially uniform single-mode field.