Low-Light-Level Optical Interactions with Rubidium Vapor in a Photonic Bandgap Fiber

W e show thata Rubidium vaporcan be produced within the core ofa photonic band-gap (cid:12)ber yielding an optical depth in excess of 2000. O ur technique for producing the vapor is based on coating the inner walls ofthe (cid:12)ber core with an organosilane and using light-induced atom ic desorption to release Rb atom s into the core. W e develop a m odelto describe the dynam ics of the atom ic density,and as an initialdem onstration ofthe potentialofthis system for supporting ultra-low-levelnonlinearopticalinteractions,weperform electrom agnetically-induced transparency with control-(cid:12)eld powersin thenanowattregim e,which representsm orethan a 1000-fold reduction from the powerrequired forbulk,focused geom etries.