Modes competition in superradiant emission from an inverted sub-wavelength thick slab of two-level atoms

Abstract Using the expansion in the eigenmodes of 1-D Lienard-Wiechert kernel, the temporal and spectral profiles of the radiation emitted by a fully inverted collection of two-level atoms in a sub-wavelength slab geometry are computed. The initial number of amplifying modes determine the specific regime of radiation. In particular, the temporal profile of the field intensity is oscillatory and the spectral profile is non-Lorentzian with two unequal height peaks in a narrow band centered at the slab thickness value at which the real parts of the lowest order odd and even eigenvalues are equal.