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arXiv:0711.4321 · Physical Review Letters

Rabi Oscillations and Excitation Trapping in the Coherent Excitation of a Mesoscopic Frozen Rydberg Gas

M. Reetz‐Lamour, Thomas Amthor, Johannes Deiglmayr, Matthias Weidemüller

Published Jun 26, 2008• 107 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We demonstrate the coherent excitation of a mesoscopic ensemble of about 100 ultracold atoms to Rydberg states by driving Rabi oscillations from the atomic ground state. We employ a dedicated beam shaping and optical pumping scheme to compensate for the small transition matrix element. We study the excitation in a weakly interacting regime and in the regime of strong interactions. When increasing the interaction strength by pair state resonances, we observe an increased excitation rate through coupling to high angular momentum states. This effect is in contrast to the proposed and previously observed interaction-induced suppression of excitation, the so-called dipole blockade.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.100.253001

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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)•Jun 1, 2009•0 citations
We demonstrate the coherent excitation of a mesoscopic ensemble of about 100 ultracold atoms to Rydberg states by driving Rabi oscillations from the atomic ground state. We employ a dedicated beam shaping and optical pumping scheme to compensate for the small transition matrix element. We study the excitation in a weakly interacting regime and in the regime of strong interactions. When increasing the interaction strength by pair state resonances, we observe an increased excitation rate through coupling to high angular momentum states. This effect is in contrast to the proposed and previously observed interaction-induced suppression of excitation, the so-called dipole blockade.
We present a detailed analysis of our recent observation of synchronous Rabi oscillations between the electronic ground state and Rydberg states in a mesoscopic ensemble containing roughly 100 ultracold atoms (Reetz-Lamour et al submitted, Preprint 0711.4321). The mesoscopic cloud is selected out of a sample of laser-cooled Rb atoms by optical pumping. The atoms are coupled to a Rydberg state with principal quantum number around 30 by a two-photon scheme employing flat-top laser beams. The influence of residual spatial intensity fluctuations as well as sources of decoherence such as redistribution to other states, radiative lifetime and laser bandwidth are analysed. The results open up new possibilities for the investigation of coherent many-body phenomena in dipolar Rydberg gases. As an example we demonstrate the van der Waals blockade, a variant of the dipole blockade, for a mesoscopic atom sample.
We present a detailed analysis of our recent observation of synchronous Rabi oscillations between the electronic ground state and Rydberg states in a mesoscopic ensemble containing roughly 100 ultracold atoms (Reetz-Lamour et al submitted, Preprint 0711.4321). The mesoscopic cloud is selected out of a sample of laser-cooled Rb atoms by optical pumping. The atoms are coupled to a Rydberg state with principal quantum number around 30 by a two-photon scheme employing flat-top laser beams. The influence of residual spatial intensity fluctuations as well as sources of decoherence such as redistribution to other states, radiative lifetime and laser bandwidth are analysed. The results open up new possibilities for the investigation of coherent many-body phenomena in dipolar Rydberg gases. As an example we demonstrate the van der Waals blockade, a variant of the dipole blockade, for a mesoscopic atom sample.
Interaction between Rydberg atoms can significantly modify Rydberg excitation dynamics. Under a resonant driving field the Rydberg-Rydberg interaction in high-lying states can induce shifts in the atomic resonance such that a secondary Rydberg excitation becomes unlikely leading to the Rydberg blockade effect. In a related effect, off-resonant coupling of light to Rydberg states of atoms contributes to the Rydberg anti-blockade effect where the Rydberg interaction creates a resonant condition that promotes a secondary excitation in a Rydberg atomic gas. Here, we study the light-matter interaction and dynamics of off-resonant two-photon excitations and include two- and three-atom Rydberg interactions and their effect on excited state dynamics in an ensemble of cold atoms. In an experimentally-motivated regime, we find the optimal physical parameters such as Rabi frequencies, two-photon detuning, and pump duration to achieve significant enhancement in the probability of generating doubly-excited collective atomic states. This results in large auto-correlation values due to the Rydberg anti-blockade effect and makes this system a potential candidate for a high-purity two-photon Fock state source.
We show that Jaynes-Cummings dynamics can be observed in mesoscopic atomic ensembles interacting with a classical electromagnetic field in the regime of a Rydberg blockade where the time dynamics of the average number of Rydberg excitations in mesoscopic ensembles displays collapses and revivals typical of this model. As the frequency of Rabi oscillations between collective states of Rydberg-blockaded ensembles depends on the number of interacting atoms, for randomly loaded optical dipole traps, we predict collapses and revivals of Rabi oscillations. We have studied the effects of finite interaction strengths and a finite laser linewidth on the visibility of the revivals. We have shown that observation of collapses and revivals of Rabi oscillations can be used as a signature of the Rydberg blockade without the need to measure the exact number of Rydberg atoms.
Abstract The dipole blockade effect at laser excitation of mesoscopic ensembles of Rydberg atoms lies in the fact that the excitation of one atom to a Rydberg state blocks the excitation of other atoms due to the shift in the collective energy levels of interacting Rydberg atoms. It is used to obtain the entangled qubit states based on single neutral atoms in optical traps. In this paper, we present our experimental results on the observation of the dipole blockade for mesoscopic ensembles of 1–5 atoms when they are detected by the selective field ionization method. We have investigated the spectra of the three-photon laser excitation 5S1/2 → 5P3/2 → 6S1/2 → nP3/2 of cold Rydberg Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap. We have found that for mesoscopic ensembles this method allows only a partial dipole blockage to be observed. This is most likely related to the presence of parasitic electric fields reducing the interaction energy of Rydberg atoms, the decrease in the probability of detecting high states, and the strong angular dependence of the interaction energy of Rydberg atoms in a single interaction volume.
Summary form only given. Interactions between neutral atoms are generally weak, but exciting these atoms in a Rydberg state considerably enhances their interaction through a long-range dipole-dipole potential. An interesting application of this dipole-dipole interaction is the dipole blockade in Rydberg excitation. This effect offers exciting possibilities for manipulating quantum bits stored in a single collective excitations in mesoscopic ensembles, or for realizing scalable quantum logic gate. The dipole blockade effect has been demonstrated in atomic ensembles by different groups, and recently also with two independently trapped atoms, which shows the possibility of creating entangle states and quantum logic gates. To extend and continue these results with more atoms, a promising method is to use atoms trapped in an optical lattice in the Mott insulator phase. To excite atoms into a Rydberg state, and to control the interactions and the dipole blockade, a high resolution laser scheme is needed. We use a two-photon excitation scheme 5s1/2rarr 6p3/2rarr ns or nd. The first step, at 420 nm, is realized by doubling a MOPA laser, with the second step at ~ 1000 nm. Both lasers are locked to a Fabry-Perot cavity, and the total excitation bandwidth is less than 3 MHz. After the excitation into the Rydberg state, we apply a pulsed electric field to ionize and detect the Rydberg atoms with an ion detector. To characterize and improve the efficiency of our ion detection, we have explored the direct ionization of ultracold atoms in a magneto-optical trap, or in a Bose-Einstein condensate. This calibration will allows us to characterize precisely the Rydberg excitation and to monitor its time evolution. First results on the Rydberg excitation of ultracold atoms in dipole traps and optical lattices will be presented. The prospect for creating Rydberg excitations inside a Mott insulator will also be discussed.