中文摘要：

电磁感应透明（electromagnetically induced transparency，EIT）发生时所伴随的效应（如可控的线性吸收和色散，可控的非线性增强）是理想光学介质所必需的重要特性。通过理解这种相干制备的多能级原子系统的线性和非线性特征，人们能够更好地设计和利用这种新颖的光学介质，并将其应用到光通信和量子信息处理中。文章简单介绍了与EIT有关的原子介质的基本（线性和非线性）光学特性，并简单评价了几个令人感兴趣的应用。

英文摘要：

Effects related to electromagnetically induced transparency （EIT）, such as controllable linear absorption and dispersion, as well as enhanced nonlinearity, provide many unique properties for ideal optical media. By understanding the fundamental linear and nonlinear optical properties of such coherently-prepared multi-level atomic systems, one can design and make use of the novel properties for various applications in optical communication and quantum information processing. In this short review we will only present the very basic （ linear and nonlinear） optical properties of EIT-related atomic media, and briefly mention a few interesting applications.