LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, we study the atomic grating produced by a three-level ladder type system which interacts with a strong standing microwave drive field of finite bandwidth. The upper levels of the atoms are coupled by the drive field while the probe field is applied on the lower two levels. We find that in the presence of phase fluctuations associated with the microwave drive field, the diffraction intensities are significantly affected. Our results show that if the probe and microwave drive are on resonance with their respective atomic transitions, then the diffraction intensities can be improved by properly adjusting the strength of the drive field. However, if the probe field is detuned from the resonance, then the diffraction intensities can be improved by appropriately selecting the strength of the drive field, probe detuning and interaction length of the medium. Interestingly, our results also show that the effects of phase grating can also be enhanced by a pertinent choice of various parameters even in the presence of phase diffusion. This results in the suppression of the zeroth order intensity while the first order intensity is increased.