Suppression of quantum noises in coherent atom lithography through squeezing

Abstract

The Abbe's diffraction limit restricts the resolution of an optical imaging and lithography system. Coherent Rabi oscillation is shown to be able to overcome the diffraction limit in both optical and atom lithography. In previous studies, semiclassical theory is applied where the driving field is treated as a classical light and quantum fluctuation is neglected. Here, we show that the quantum fluctuation may reduce the visibility of the superresolution pattern. However, by squeezing the photon number fluctuation we are able to significantly increase its visibility.

Tunable atom lithography scheme with high resolution in atomic system

“…However, this method is pointed out that entangled photons are spatially unconstrained, and the possibility for N photons simultaneously being absorbed in one point is very small in experiment [10]. The methods without entangled light have been proposed [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], such as the quantum interference with classical light for lithography [11,12]. The multiphoton absorption process that uses Doppleron-type resonances helps to achieve the resolution of pattern beyond λ/2 [13][14][15], and its resolution and visibility are further improved by preventing simultaneous absorption of two signal beams [16].…”

“…The multiphoton absorption process that uses Doppleron-type resonances helps to achieve the resolution of pattern beyond λ/2 [13][14][15], and its resolution and visibility are further improved by preventing simultaneous absorption of two signal beams [16]. Multi-Rabi oscillations scheme between a two-atomic level is proposed for quantum lithography beyond the diffraction limit [17][18][19][20][21]. There is also a multi-Λ atom scheme utilizing coherent population trapping [22,23], but it requires multi-beams and a combination of multi-Λ levels for a high resolution.…”