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arXiv:1402.6977 · New Journal of Physics

Imaging cold atoms with shot-noise and diffraction limited holography

J P Sobol, Saijun Wu

Published Sep 30, 2014• 11 citations
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Abstract

We theoretically develop and experimentally demonstrate a holographic method for imaging cold atoms at the diffraction and photon shot noise limits. Aided by a double point source reference field, a simple iterative algorithm robustly removes the twin image of an 87 Rb cold atom sample during the image reconstruction. Shot-noise limited phase shift and absorption images are consistently retrieved at various probe detunings, and during the laser cooling process. We consistently resolve less than 2 mrad phase shift ( attenuation) of the probe light, outperforming shot-noise limited phase-contrast (absorption) imaging by a factor of 4 or more if the same camera is used without pixel saturation. We discuss the possible extension of this work for precise phase imaging of dense atomic gases, and for off-resonant probing of multiple atoms in optical lattices.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/16/9/093064

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We theoretically develop and experimentally demonstrate a holographic method for imaging cold atoms at the diffraction and photon shot noise limits. Aided by a double point source reference field, a simple iterative algorithm robustly removes the twin image of an 87 Rb cold atom sample during the image reconstruction. Shot-noise limited phase shift and absorption images are consistently retrieved at various probe detunings, and during the laser cooling process. We consistently resolve less than 2 mrad phase shift ( attenuation) of the probe light, outperforming shot-noise limited phase-contrast (absorption) imaging by a factor of 4 or more if the same camera is used without pixel saturation. We discuss the possible extension of this work for precise phase imaging of dense atomic gases, and for off-resonant probing of multiple atoms in optical lattices.
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When a laser-cooled atomic sample is optically excited, the envelope of coherent forward scattering can often be decomposed into a few complex Gaussian profiles. The convenience of Gaussian propagation helps address key challenges in digital holography. In this paper, we develop a Gaussian-decomposition-assisted approach to inline holography for single-shot, simultaneous measurements of absorption and phase-shift profiles of small atomic samples sparsely distributed in three dimensions. The samples' axial positions are resolved with micrometer resolution and their spectroscopy are extracted from complex-valued images recorded at various probe frequencies. The phase-angle readout is not only robust against transition saturation but also insensitive to atom-number and optical-pumping-induced interaction-strength fluctuations. Benefiting from such features, we achieve hundred-kHz-level single-shot resolution to the transition frequency of a Rb 87 D 2 line, with merely hundreds of atoms. We further demonstrate single-shot three-dimensional field sensing by measuring local light shifts to the atomic array with micrometer spatial resolution.
The ability to detect atoms in high spatiotemporal resolution provides a powerful tool for us to investigate the quantum properties of ultracold quantum gases. Plenty of useful imaging methods, including absorption imaging, phase contrast imaging and fluorescence imaging, have been implemented in detecting atoms. Among them, absorption imaging is the most widely used method in cold atoms laboratory. However, the traditional absorption imaging method is affected by perturbations such as interference between optical elements, fluctuation of laser power, frequency, and spatial position, resulting in residual spatially structured noise and degradation of imaging quality. Especially for regions with lower density or for longer time-of-flight, a large number of repetitions are often required to obtain better signal-to-noise ratio, which would increase the time cost and induce other noise. One must reduce the time between two imaging pulses to suppress the spatial noise. A better charge coupled device (CCD) with higher frame transfer rate or other method like fast-kinetic mode will be used to improve the imaging quality. In this paper, a single-shot cold atom imaging method based on machine learning is proposed, in which only one absorption imaging of cold atoms is required, and the corresponding background image can be generated through the neural network of an autoencoder. This effectively reduces the spatial striped noise in imaging, significantly improves the imaging quality, and makes it possible for cold atoms to be imaged multiple times in a single cycle.
We introduce a noninvasive imaging technique based on spin-dependent off-axis holography for spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates. Utilizing a dual reference beam strategy, this method records two orthogonal circular polarization components of a single probe beam. The circular birefringence of spin-polarized atoms induces differing complex phase shifts in the polarization components of the light, which are reconstructed from the interference patterns captured on camera. Our approach enables spin- and density-resolved imaging of both phase and amplitude information in situ on a submillisecond timescale with minimal disturbance to the condensate. We explore the technique's efficacy under various background static fields, demonstrating its sensitivity to the quantization axis of the atoms and confirming its effectiveness.
The propagation of light in moving media is dragged by atomic motion. The light-drag effect can be dramatically enhanced by reducing the group velocity with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We develop a systematic procedure to accurately reconstruct the complex wavefront of the slow light with single-shot measurements, enabling precise, photon shot-noise-limited spectroscopic measurements of atomic response across EIT even in the presence of generic atomic number fluctuations. Applying the technique to an expanding cloud of cold atoms, we demonstrate simultaneous inference of the atomic density distribution and the velocity field from the complex imaging data. This inline imaging technique may assist a wide range of cold-atom experiments to access spectroscopic and phase-space information with in situ and minimally destructive measurements.