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arXiv:0712.1482 · Annales de Physique

Guided atom laser: a new tool for guided atom optics

Juliette Billy, Vincent Josse, Z. Zuo, William Guerin, Alain Aspect, Philippe Bouyer

Published Jan 1, 2007• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a guided atom laser. A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is created in a crossed hybrid magnetic and an elongated optical trap, which acts as a matterwave guide. Atoms are extracted from the BEC by radio frequency (rf) outcoupling and then guided in the horizontal optical matterwave guide. This method allows to control the acceleration of the beam and to achieve large de Broglie wavelength. We also measure the longitudinal energy of the guided atom laser using atom optical elements based on a blue light barrier.

DOI
10.1051/anphys:2008001

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We present a guided atom laser. A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is created in a crossed hybrid magnetic and an elongated optical trap, which acts as a matterwave guide. Atoms are extracted from the BEC by radio frequency (rf) outcoupling and then guided in the horizontal optical matterwave guide. This method allows to control the acceleration of the beam and to achieve large de Broglie wavelength. We also measure the longitudinal energy of the guided atom laser using atom optical elements based on a blue light barrier.
We report the first realization of a guided quasicontinuous atom laser by rf outcoupling a Bose-Einstein condensate from a hybrid optomagnetic trap into a horizontal atomic waveguide. This configuration allows us to cancel the acceleration due to gravity and keep the de Broglie wavelength constant at 0.5 microm during 0.1 s of propagation. We also show that our configuration, equivalent to pigtailing an optical fiber to a (photon) semiconductor laser, ensures an intrinsically good transverse mode matching.
The atom laser has long been a holy grail within atom physics and with the creation of an atom laser we hope to bring a similar revolution in to the field of atom optics. With the creation of the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) in 1995 the path to an atom laser was initiated. An atom laser is continues source of BEC. In a Bose condensate all the atoms occupy the same quantum state and can be described by the same wave function and phase. With an atom laser the De Broglie wavelength of atoms can be much smaller than the wavelength of light. Due to the ultimate control over the atoms the atom laser is very interesting for atom optics, lithography, metrology, etching and deposition of atoms on a surface. All previous atom lasers have been created from atoms coupled out from an existing Bose-Einstein Condensate. There are different approaches but common to them all is that the duration of the output of the atom laser is limited by the size of the initial BEC and they all have a low flux. This leaves the quest to build a continuous high flux atom laser. An alternative approach to a continuous BEC beam is to channel a continuous ultra cold atomic beam into a magnetic guide and then cool this beam down to degeneracy. Cooling down a continuous beam of atoms faces three large problems: The collision rate has to be large enough for effective rethermalization, since evaporative cooling in 2D is not as effective as in 3D and a large thermal conductivity due to atoms with a high angular momentum causes heating downstream in the guide. We have built a 4 meter magnetic guide that is placed on a downward slope with a magnetic barrier in the end. In the guide we load packets of ultra cold rubidium atoms with a frequency rate large enough for the packets to merge together to form a continuous atomic beam. The atomic beam is supersonic and when the beam reaches the end barrier it will return and collide with itself. The collisions lowers the velocity of the beam into subsonic velocities and a shock wave is created between the two velocity regions. In order to conserve number of particle, momentum and enthalpy the density of the atomic beam passing through the shock wave must increase. We have build such a shock wave in an atomic beam and observed the density increase due to this. As an extra feature having a subsonic beam on a downward slope adds an extra density increase due to gravitational compression. Loading ultra cold atoms into a 3D trap from the dense subsonic beam overcomes the problem with 2D cooling and thermal conductivity. This was done and evaporative cooling was applied creating an unprecedented large number rubidium BEC.
We report the achievement of an optically guided and quasi-monomode atom laser, in all spin projection states ( m F =-1, 0 and +1) of F =1 in rubidium 87. The atom laser source is a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a crossed dipole trap, purified to any one spin projection state by a spin-distillation process applied during the evaporation to BEC. The atom laser is outcoupled by an inhomogenous magnetic field, applied along the waveguide axis. The mean excitation number in the transverse modes is ⟨ n ⟩=0.65±0.05 for m F =0 and ⟨ n ⟩=0.8±0.3 for the low-field seeker m F =-1. Using a simple thermodynamical model, we infer from our data the population in each excited mode.
We have experimentally demonstrated a high level of control of the mode populations of guided-atom lasers (GALs) by showing that the entropies per particle of an optically GAL and the one of the trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) from which it has been produced are the same. The BEC is prepared in a crossed beam optical dipole trap. We have achieved isentropic outcoupling for both magnetic and optical schemes. We can prepare GAL in a nearly pure monomode regime (85% in the ground state). Furthermore, optical outcoupling enables the production of spinor guided-atom lasers and opens the possibility to tailor their polarization.
Presents work on the realization of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in optical and electro-magnetic traps. We have done some theoretical and experimental work on the project. We have proposed an optical funnel or a hollow beam, which are produced from a short micron-sized hollow optical fiber or a set-up of lenses. The cold atoms extracted from an magneto-optical trap experience effective Sisyphus cooling in the dark hollow beam. We calculate the potential barriers for atomic guiding in the dark hollow beam, and analyze the atomic losses during the guiding process. Inside the hollow beam atoms experience an efficient Sisyphus cooling and repumping-beam induced geometric cooling. We have estimated the total loss rate of the cold atoms, and it shows that an ultracold and dense Rb atomic sample with a 3D temperature of /spl sim/1 K can be obtained and the appearance of an optically-trapped Bose-Einstein condensation may be possible in this optical trap. We have also made a proposal of a micro-wave electro-magnetic trap, which is working at the frequency which is very far from the optical transition of the cold atoms. The trapping force comes from the interaction between the electro-magnetic induced magnetic dipole moment with the electro-magnetic field. Theoretical calculation shows that the force can be used to trap the cold atoms in the trap.