Coherent control of excited atomic states inside a photonic band gap

We demonstrate the coherent control of the excited states of the atom embedded in a photonic band gap (PBG) structure by means of a Rabi oscillation. In this demonstration, we show that the atomic decay is strongly suppressed not only during the Rabi oscillation but also during switching process to the final steady state. This switching is achieved by eliminating one of localized field modes arising from the localization of the emitted photon in the vicinity of the atom due to the PBG, where the suppression of the atomic decay during the switching is facilitated by achieving this elimination not outside the PBG but inside the PBG. Such a coherent control of excited states without the atomic decay suggests the possibility of extending the atomic system for quantum computing to act as nearly lossless.