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arXiv:1210.0551 · Physical Review A

Resonant few-photon excitation of a single-ion oscillator

Yen-Wei Lin, S. Williams, Brian Odom

Published Jan 31, 2013• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the motion of an undamped single-ion harmonic oscillator, resonantly driven with a pulsed radiation pressure force. We demonstrate that a barium ion, initially cooled to the Doppler limit, quickly phase locks to the drive and builds up coherent oscillations above the thermal distribution after scattering of order 100 photons. In our experiment, this seeded motion is subsequently amplified and then analyzed by Doppler velocimetry. Since the coherent oscillation is conditional upon the internal quantum state of the ion, this motional excitation technique could be useful in atomic or molecular single-ion spectroscopy experiments, providing a simple protocol for state readout of nonfluorescing ions with partially closed-cycle transitions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.011402

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Coherently displaced number states of a harmonically bound ion can be coupled to two internal states of the ion by a laser-induced motional sideband interaction. The internal states can subsequently be read out in a projective measurement via state-dependent fluorescence, with near-unit fidelity. This leads to a rich set of line shapes when recording the internal-state excitation probability after a sideband excitation, as a function of the frequency detuning of the displacement drive with respect to the ion's motional frequency. We precisely characterize the coherent displacement based on the resulting line shapes, which exhibit sharp features that are useful for oscillator frequency determination from the single quantum regime up to very large coherent states with average occupation numbers of several hundred. We also introduce a technique based on multiple coherent displacements and free precession for characterizing noise on the trapping potential in the frequency range of 500 Hz–400 kHz. Signals from the ion are directly used to find and eliminate sources of technical noise in this typically unaccessed part of the spectrum.
Absorption spectroscopy is a fundamental tool for probing molecular structure. However, performing absorption spectroscopy on individual molecules is challenging due to the low signal-to-noise ratio. Here, we report on a nondestructive absorption spectroscopy on a mid-infrared vibrational transition in a single molecular ion that is co-trapped with an atomic ion. The absorption of a single photon is detected via the momentum transfer from the absorbed photon onto the molecule. This recoil signal is amplified using a non-classical state of motion of the two-ion crystal and subsequently read out via the atomic ion. We characterize the recoil detection method and use it to investigate the interaction between femtosecond laser pulses and the O-H stretching vibration in individual CaOH+ molecular ions. Furthermore, we present the single-photon absorption spectrum obtained for the vibrational transition. This method represents a milestone towards quantum non-demolition measurements of complex polyatomic molecules, providing high-fidelity methods for preparation and measurement of the quantum state of a wide range of molecular species.