Tunable and enhanced Goos-Hänchen shift via surface plasmon resonance assisted by a coherent medium.

We present a scheme for enhancing Goos-Hänchen shift of light beam that is reflected from a coherent atomic medium in the Kretschmann-Raether configuration. The complex permittivity of the medium can be coherently controlled and has significant influence on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) at the metal-medium interface. By tuning the atomic absorption, the internal damping of SPR system can be modulated effectively, thereby leading to giant positive and negative lateral displacements. The refractive index of medium determines the SPR angle. Thus the peak position of the beam shift becomes tunable. As the optical response of the coherent medium depends on the intensity and detuning of the controlling fields, we are able to conveniently manipulate the magnitude, the sign, and the angular position of Goos-Hänchen shift peaks.