Spatially resolved excitation of Rydberg atoms and surface effects on an atom chip

Abstract

General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. We demonstrate spatially resolved, coherent excitation of Rydberg atoms on an atom chip. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is used to investigate the properties of the Rydberg atoms near the gold-coated chip surface. We measure distance-dependent shifts (∼10 MHz) of the Rydberg energy levels caused by a spatially inhomogeneous electric field. The measured field strength and distance dependence is in agreement with a simple model for the electric field produced by a localized patch of Rb adsorbates deposited on the chip surface during experiments. The EIT resonances remain narrow (<4 MHz) and the observed widths are independent of atom-surface distance down to ∼20 µm, indicating relatively long lifetime of the Rydberg states. Our results open the way to studies of dipolar physics, collective excitations, quantum metrology, and quantum information processing involving interacting Rydberg excited atoms on atom chips.

Subnatural linewidths in two-photon excited-state spectroscopy

“…Spectroscopy of excited state transitions is of growing interest for a variety of applications including the search for stable frequency references [1,2], state lifetime measurement [3], optical filtering [4], frequency up-conversion [5], multiphoton laser cooling [6], as well as Rydberg gases [7,8] and their application to electro-optics [9][10][11] and nonlinear optics [12]. Twophoton excited state spectroscopy can be achieved without significant transfer of population out of the ground state using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) [13] in the ladder configuration [14].…”

Electric Field Cancellation on Quartz by Rb Adsorbate-Induced Negative Electron Affinity

“…At distances far from the surface z d, the E-field can be modeled as two finite sheets of charge separated by a small distance [17,18]. We model the E-field with uniformly charged square sheets of length L. Near the center of the sheets, the E-field is largely perpendicular to the surface,…”

“…nitudes ranging from ∼ 0.1 − 10 V cm −1 have been measured at distances of ∼ 10−100 µm [9,15,16,18,21]. We measure radically different E-fields depending upon the number of slow electrons produced near the surface.…”

“…One problem is that Rydberg atoms incident upon metal surfaces can be ionized [12, 13]. A second major hurdle is the background electric fields (Efields) caused by adsorbates [14][15][16][17][18][19]. Rydberg states are sensitive to adsorbate E-fields because they are highly polarizable [20].…”

Stability of a trapped-atom clock on a chip

“…Other experiments strive for the realization of quantum information processors [32][33][34]. The high sensitivity and micron-scale position control have been used for probing static magnetic [35] and electric [36] fields as well as microwaves [37]. Creating atom interferometers [38] on atom chips is equally appealing.…”