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arXiv:0905.2207 · Optics Letters

Optical lattice on an atom chip

D. Gallego, Sebastian Hofferberth, Thorsten Schumm, P. Krüger, Jörg Schmiedmayer

Published Nov 4, 2009• 20 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Optical dipole traps and atom chips are two very powerful tools for the quantum manipulation of neutral atoms. We demonstrate that both methods can be combined by creating an optical lattice potential on an atom chip. A red-detuned laser beam is retroreflected using the atom chip surface as a high-quality mirror, generating a vertical array of purely optical oblate traps. We transfer thermal atoms from the chip into the lattice and observe cooling into the two-dimensional regime. Using a chip-generated Bose-Einstein condensate, we demonstrate coherent Bloch oscillations in the lattice.

DOI
10.1364/ol.34.003463

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•Jan 1, 2014•0 citations
Optical dipole traps and atom chips are two very powerful tools for the quantum manipulation of neutral atoms. We demonstrate that both methods can be combined by creating an optical lattice potential on an atom chip. A red-detuned laser beam is retroreflected using the atom chip surface as a high-quality mirror, generating a vertical array of purely optical oblate traps. We transfer thermal atoms from the chip into the lattice and observe cooling into the two-dimensional regime. Using a chip-generated Bose-Einstein condensate, we demonstrate coherent Bloch oscillations in the lattice.
In this work we present the results of studies of one-dimensional (1D) and twodimensional (2D) optical lattices on a chip.We have developed a method to create 1D and 2D optical lattices above an optical waveguide.The method is based on the destructive interference of the evanescent waves of two modes of the waveguide, resulting in a periodic array of nodes above the waveguide surface.For blue-detuned light, this constitutes an array of optical dipole traps for neutral atoms.One pair of modes coupled into a ridge waveguide creates a 1D array of nodes in this manner, and two orthogonal pairs of modes in a slab waveguide result in a 2D array of nodes.Computational analysis of our method showed that these optical atom chips may be suitable for use as a quantum register, and for studies of atom-surface interactions between the trapped atoms and the waveguide surface.Using realistic waveguide materials and laboratory laser parameters we found that for a laser power of ~100 mW nodes can be created ~100 nm above the waveguide surface.The nodes constitute atom traps that are ~1mK deep, and have trap frequencies ~1MHz and ground state sizes of ~10 nm.The spacing between traps is ~1 µm enabling individual addressing with a focused laser beam.iii With the implementation of two-qubit gates in mind, initial investigations of extensions of the basic 2D optical lattice were conducted.Computational results for a counter-propagating 2D optical lattice with very close trap spacing (~λ/4) in one dimension, and for a 2D optical lattice with adjustable spacing between pairs of traps in one dimension are presented.An experimental setup for the realization of the proposed 2D optical lattices on a chip was designed and built.Several cooling and trapping steps necessary to prepare a cold atom sample for loading of the 2D optical lattice have been implemented successfully.In the course of previous studies of atom-surface interactions, a novel surfaceionization detector for 2D imaging of neutral atom samples was built and characterized.We find a detection efficiency ~50 %, a spatial resolution of 20 µm and a time response < 1/30 s. iv To my family.v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my advisor Greg Lafyatis for everything that he taught me.I also want to thank Frank DeLucia for always being there with his advice when I needed it.I appreciate Eric Herbst and Junko Shigemitsu for being willing to serve on
Single atoms are a promising candidate for the creation of a scalable quantum computer. Neutral atoms trapped by optical fields are especially encouraging due to the full controllability of the trap potential. Single neutral atoms trapped within a fibre-fibre cavity allow us to strongly couple atoms and photons. This creates an efficient atom-photon interface which can compensate for the short state transfer distance inherent of neutral atoms. A spatial light modulator allows for the creation and manipulation of an array of these single atom traps.\n\nIn this research we create a setup to cool and trap neutral rubidium-87 atoms by a combination of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and a dipole trap. The dipole trap uses a strongly focused, far red-detuned laser, which enables us to trap single atoms via the collisional blockade regime. These traps are realised within a novel glass cell, allowing for great optical access.\n\nThe MOT in this setup is able to trap (4.27 +/- 0.10) * 10^3 atoms with a density of (7.89 +/- 0.56) * 10^9 atoms cm^-3 . The MOT temperature is in the order of 100 μK. We also show the manipulation of these properties, allowing us to tailor the MOT. The dipole trap is created with a trap waist of 37 μm, allowing us to trap a cloud of atoms. With the dipole trap we achieve a lifetime of atoms of (34.8 +/- 2.0) ms.
We discuss our recent experimental demonstrations of three novel atom traps which are all based on the optical dipole force in far-detuned laser light. In the gravito-optical surface trap (GOST), Cs atoms are trapped and cooled by means of an evanescent-wave mirror very closely above a dielectric surface. This trap allows for optical cooling at very high densities and provides good starting conditions for evaporative cooling to quantum degeneracy and the realization of a 2D quantum gas. The conical atom trap (CAT) uses a hollow blue-detuned laser beam in combination with gravity to trap atoms in a dark spatial region. This trap is experimentally simple and provides high loading efficiency, tight confinement, efficient sub-Doppler cooling, and strong suppression of collisional losses. The standing-wave red-detuned (STAR) trap allows one to confine atoms in a shallow optical potential at a very low photon scattering rate, and is thus an interesting tool for studies of the atomic ground-state dynamics in external electro-magnetic fields. We have studied atomic spin polarization in this trap.
An atom-chip-based integrated optical lattice system for cold and ultracold atom applications is presented. The retroreflection optics necessary for forming the lattice are bonded directly to the atom chip, enabling a compact and robust on-chip optical lattice system. After achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in a magnetic chip trap, we load atoms directly into a vertically oriented 1D optical lattice and demonstrate Landau-Zener tunneling. The atom chip technology presented here can be readily extended to higher dimensional optical lattices.
Ultracold atom-traps on a chip enhances the practical application of atom traps in quantum information processing, sensing, and metrology. Plasmon mediated near-field optical potentials are promising for trapping atoms. The combination of plasmonic nanostructures and ultracold atoms has the potential to create a two dimensional array of neutral atoms with lattice spacing smaller than that of lattices created from interfering light fields -- the optical lattices. We report the design, fabrication and characterization of a nano-scale array of near-field optical traps for neutral atoms using plasmonic nanostructures. The building block of the array is a metallic nano-disc fabricated on the surface of an ITO-coated glass substrate. We numerically simulate the electromagnetic field-distribution using Finite Difference Time Domain method around the nanodisc, and calculate the intensity, optical potential and the dipole force for 87^{87}87Rb atoms. The optical near-field generated from the fabricated nanostructures is experimentally characterized by using Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy. We find that the optical potential and dipole force has all the desired characteristics to trap cold atoms when a blue-detuned light-field is used to excite the nanostructures. This trap can be used for effective trapping and manipulation of isolated atoms and also for creating a lattice of neutral atoms having sub-optical wavelength lattice spacing. Near-field measurements are affected by the influence of tip on the sub-wavelength structure. We present a deconvolution method to extract the actual near-field profile from the measured data.
Abstract \nThis work is split into two parts, in part one of this thesis we report on the improvement of the lifetime of a quantum memory based on neutral atoms while in part two we will focus on a new setup to perform experiments on neutral atoms within a 2D optical lattice. In the quantum memory experiment we used a blue-detuned optical dipole trap to confine the atoms in a minimum intensity region of the light beam, reducing dephasing due to differential light shift. We saw improvement in comparison to a previous experiment \nusing red-detuned dipole traps. The anticipated lifetime could not be reached, however. We observed oscillations of the retrievability of our stored state which we explain by the evolution of the transversal component of the spinwave using Monte-Carlo simulations. In the second part we report on our new setup, built to investigate a broad range of \nexperiments regarding 2D physics on optical lattices. This field is of special interest as it allows to simulate Hamiltonians of a wide range e.g. from solid state physics and opens possibilities regarding large-scale Entanglement/one-way computing. In particular we discuss 2D Mott-insulators, 2D-Bloch oscillation induced transport phenomena and ring-exchange in a superlattice plaquette. \n