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arXiv:1406.2047 · New Journal of Physics

Carrier-free Raman manipulation of trapped neutral atoms

René Reimann, Wolfgang Alt, Tobias Macha, Dieter Meschede, Natalie Thau, Seokchan Yoon, Lothar Ratschbacher

Published Nov 19, 2014• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We experimentally realize an enhanced Raman control scheme for neutral atoms that features an intrinsic suppression of the two-photon carrier transition, but retains the sidebands which couple to the external degrees of freedom of the trapped atoms. This is achieved by trapping the atom at the node of a blue detuned standing wave dipole trap, that acts as one field for the two-photon Raman coupling. The improved ratio between cooling and heating processes in this configuration enables a five times lower fundamental temperature limit for resolved sideband cooling. We apply this method to perform Raman cooling to the two-dimensional vibrational ground state and to coherently manipulate the atomic motion. The presented scheme requires minimal additional resources and can be applied to experiments with challenging optical access, as we demonstrate by our implementation for atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/16/11/113042

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We experimentally realize an enhanced Raman control scheme for neutral atoms that features an intrinsic suppression of the two-photon carrier transition, but retains the sidebands which couple to the external degrees of freedom of the trapped atoms. This is achieved by trapping the atom at the node of a blue detuned standing wave dipole trap, that acts as one field for the two-photon Raman coupling. The improved ratio between cooling and heating processes in this configuration enables a five times lower fundamental temperature limit for resolved sideband cooling. We apply this method to perform Raman cooling to the two-dimensional vibrational ground state and to coherently manipulate the atomic motion. The presented scheme requires minimal additional resources and can be applied to experiments with challenging optical access, as we demonstrate by our implementation for atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity.
The evanescent field surrounding nanoscale optical waveguides offers an efficient interface between light and mesoscopic ensembles of neutral atoms. However, the thermal motion of trapped atoms, combined with the strong radial gradients of the guided light, leads to a time-modulated coupling between atoms and the light mode, thus giving rise to additional noise and motional dephasing of collective states. Here, we present a dipole force free scheme for coupling of the radial motional states, utilizing the strong intensity gradient of the guided mode and demonstrate all-optical coupling of the cesium hyperfine ground states and motional sideband transitions. We utilize this to prolong the trap lifetime of an atomic ensemble by Raman sideband cooling of the radial motion which, to the best of our knowledge, has not been demonstrated in nano-optical structures previously. This Letter points towards full and independent control of internal and external atomic degrees of freedom using guided light modes only.
We trap neutral Cs atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice and cool them close to the zero point of motion by resolved-sideband Raman cooling. Sideband cooling occurs via transitions between the vibrational manifolds associated with a pair of magnetic sublevels, and the required Raman coupling is provided by the lattice potential itself. We obtain mean vibrational excitations ${\overline{n}}_{x}\ensuremath{\approx}{\overline{n}}_{y}<0.024$, corresponding to a population >95>95%>95 in the vibrational ground state. Atoms in the ground state of an optical lattice provide a new system in which to explore quantum state control and subrecoil laser cooling.
We present two schemes for driving Raman transitions between the ground-state hyperfine manifolds of a single atom trapped within a high-finesse optical cavity. In both schemes, the Raman coupling is generated by standing-wave fields inside the cavity, thus circumventing the optical access limitations that free-space Raman schemes must face in a cavity system. These cavity-based Raman schemes can be used to coherently manipulate both the internal and motional degrees of freedom of the atom, and thus provide powerful tools for studying cavity quantum electrodynamics. We give a detailed theoretical analysis of each scheme, both for a three-level atom and for a multilevel cesium atom. In addition, we show how these Raman schemes can be used to cool the axial motion of the atom to the quantum ground state, and we perform computer simulations of the cooling process.
A single neutral atom is trapped in a three-dimensional optical lattice at the center of a high-finesse optical resonator. Using fluorescence imaging and a shiftable standing-wave trap, the atom is deterministically loaded into the maximum of the intracavity field where the atom-cavity coupling is strong. After 5 ms of Raman sideband cooling, the three-dimensional motional ground state is populated with a probability of (89±2)%. Our system is the first to simultaneously achieve quantum control over all degrees of freedom of a single atom: its position and momentum, its internal state, and its coupling to light.
We report cooling of a single neutral atom to its three-dimensional vibrational ground state in an optical tweezer.After employing Raman sideband cooling for tens of milliseconds, we measure via sideband spectroscopy a three-dimensional ground-state occupation of about 90%.We further observe coherent control of the spin and motional state of the trapped atom.Our demonstration shows that an optical tweezer, formed simply by a tightly focused beam of light, creates sufficient confinement for efficient sideband cooling.This source of ground-state neutral atoms will be instrumental in numerous quantum simulation and logic applications that require a versatile platform for storing and manipulating ultracold single neutral atoms.For example, these results will improve current optical-tweezer experiments studying atom-photon coupling and Rydberg quantum logic gates, and could provide new opportunities such as rapid production of single dipolar molecules or quantum simulation in tweezer arrays.
Optical dipole traps can provide strong, state-independent confinement of atoms. Unfortunately, the spatially dependent light shifts of optical transitions in dipole traps can interfere with conventional laser cooling techniques. These limitations may be overcome by cooling trapped atoms with stimulated Raman transitions. In particular, the lights shifts of ground state sublevels can be equal, so that the Raman cooling transition is unperturbed. Cooling in the sideband limit, to the quantum ground state of motion, should be possible. We have confined {sup 85}Rb atoms in a far-detuned optical dipole trap, and indirectly measured extremely low heating rates of the trapped atoms. We have also driven velocity-sensitive stimulated Raman transitions of the trapped atoms. The high resolution of these stimulated Raman resonances should allow us to resolve the motional sidebands and to directly cool the trapped atoms.