We present a diagrammatic method for complete characterization of multiphoton processes in three-level atomic systems. By considering the interaction routes of the coupling and probe photons for a ladder-type, three-level, noncycling (or cycling) atomic system, we are able to completely discriminate between the pure one-photon and the pure two-photon resonance effects, and the effect of their combination in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using our diagrammatic method. We show that the proposed diagrammatic method is very useful for the analysis of multiphoton processes in ladder-type EIT.

• Received 22 June 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.84.053827