Trapping of Single Atoms in Cavity QED

Ye, J.; Vernooy, D. W.; Kimble, H. J.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.83.4987

Cited by 373 publications

(351 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Multi-atom collective effects can also dramatically enhance the coherent matter-field interaction strength (11). However, systems based on neutral atoms normally suffer from decoherence due to coupling between their internal and external degrees of freedom (12). In this article we report a record-level spectral resolution in the optical domain based on a doubly forbidden transition in neutral atomic strontium.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Atomic Coherence at the 1-Second Time Scale

Boyd

Zelevinsky

Ludlow

et al. 2006

Science

158

147

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Highest resolution laser spectroscopy has generally been limited to single trapped ion systems due to rapid decoherence which plagues neutral atom ensembles. Here, precision spectroscopy of ultracold neutral atoms confined in a trapping potential shows superior optical coherence without any deleterious effects from motional degrees of freedom, revealing optical resonance linewidths at the hertz level with an excellent signal to noise ratio. The resonance quality factor of 2.4 x 10 14 is the highest ever recovered in any form of coherent spectroscopy. The spectral resolution permits direct observation of the breaking of nuclear spin degeneracy for the 1 S 0 and 3 P 0 optical clock states of 87 Sr under a small magnetic bias field. This optical NMR-like approach allows an accurate measurement of the differential Landé g-factor between the two states. The optical atomic coherence demonstrated for collective excitation of a large number of atoms will have a strong impact on quantum measurement and precision frequency metrology.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Atomic Coherence at the 1-Second Time Scale

Boyd

Zelevinsky

Ludlow

et al. 2006

Science

158

147

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“…Subsequently, the theoretical background of dipole forces was developed [8,9], and in 1986 the first optical trapping of neutral atoms was reported by Chu et al [10]. The first single atoms confined in an optical dipole trap were reported in 1999 [11], again delayed by two decades compared to the first single trapped ion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical trapping of an ion

et al. 2010

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For several decades, ions have been trapped by radio frequency (RF) and neutral particles by optical fields. We implement the experimental proof-of-principle for trapping an ion in an optical dipole trap. While loading, initialization and final detection are performed in a RF trap, in between, this RF trap is completely disabled and substituted by the optical trap. The measured lifetime of milliseconds allows for hundreds of oscillations within the optical potential. It is mainly limited by heating due to photon scattering. In future experiments the lifetime may be increased by further detuning the laser and cooling the ion. We demonstrate the prerequisite to merge both trapping techniques in hybrid setups to the point of trapping ions and atoms in the same optical potential.

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“…1d). For lattices with trapping frequency above v x 20kHz, technical fluctuations in the lattice potential 3 heat up the condensate. In the following, we describe three experiments that explore the main aspects of atoms-field interaction in our system.…”

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confidence: 99%

Strong atom–field coupling for Bose–Einstein condensates in an optical cavity on a chip

Colombe¹,

Steinmetz²,

Dubois³

et al. 2007

Nature

686

711

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An optical cavity enhances the interaction between atoms and light, and the rate of coherent atom-photon coupling can be made larger than all decoherence rates of the system. For single atoms, this "strong coupling regime" of cavity quantum electrodynamics 1,2 (cQED) has been the subject of spectacular experimental advances, and great efforts have been made to control the coupling rate by trapping 3,4 and cooling the atom 5,6 towards the motional ground state, which has been achieved in one dimension so far 5 . For N atoms, the three-dimensional ground state of motion is routinely achieved in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) 7 , but although first experiments combining BECs and optical cavities have been reported recently 8,9 , coupling BECs to strong-coupling cavities has remained an elusive goal. Here we report such an experiment, which is made possible by combining a new type of fibre-based cavity 10 with atom chip technology 11 . This allows single-atom cQED experiments with a simplified setup and realizes the new situation of N atoms in a cavity each of which is identically and strongly coupled to the cavity mode 12 . Moreover, the BEC can be positioned deterministically anywhere within the cavity and localized entirely within a single antinode of the standing-wave cavity field. This gives rise to a controlled, tunable coupling rate, as we confirm experimentally. We study the heating rate caused by a cavity transmission measurement as a function of the coupling rate and find no measurable heating for strongly coupled BECs. The spectrum of the coupled atoms-cavity system, which we map out over a wide range of atom numbers and cavity-atom detunings, shows vacuum Rabi splittings exceeding 20 gigahertz, as well as an unpredicted additional splitting which we attribute to the atomic hyperfine structure. The system is suitable as a light-matter quantum interface for quantum information 13 . 2 The interaction of an ensemble of N atoms with a single mode of radiation has been a recurrent theme in quantum optics at least since the work of Dicke 14 , who showed that under certain conditions the atoms interact with the radiation collectively, giving rise to new effects such as superradiance. Recently, collective interactions with weak fields, with and without a cavity, have become a focus of theoretical and experimental investigations, especially since it became clear that they can turn the ensemble into a quantum memory 13,15 . Such a memory would become a key element for processing quantum information 13,16 if realized with near-unit conversion efficiency and long storage time. The figure of merit determining the probability of converting an atomic excitation into a cavity photon (a "memory qubit" into a "flying qubit") is the between the ensemble and the field, 2 is the cavity photon decay rate and 2 the atomic spontaneous emission rate. (Up to a factor of order 1, C N is the single-pass optical depth of the atomic sample multiplied by the cavity finesse .) For weak excitation, to which we restrict oursel...

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Trapping of Single Atoms in Cavity QED

Cited by 373 publications

References 19 publications

Optical Atomic Coherence at the 1-Second Time Scale

Optical Atomic Coherence at the 1-Second Time Scale

Optical trapping of an ion

Strong atom–field coupling for Bose–Einstein condensates in an optical cavity on a chip

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