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arXiv:1412.0577 · Optics Letters

Microscopic lensing by a dense, cold atomic sample

S.J. Roof, Kasie Kemp, Mark D. Havey, Igor M. Sokolov, Dmitriy V. Kupriyanov

Published Mar 13, 2015• 39 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate that a cold, dense sample of Rb87 atoms can exhibit a micron-scale lensing effect, much like that associated with a macroscopically sized lens. The experiment is carried out in the fashion of traditional z-scan measurements but in much weaker fields and where close attention is paid to the detuning dependence of the transmitted light. The results are interpreted using numerical simulations and by modeling the sample as a thin lens with a spherical focal length.

DOI
10.1364/ol.40.001137

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We demonstrate that a cold, dense sample of Rb87 atoms can exhibit a micron-scale lensing effect, much like that associated with a macroscopically sized lens. The experiment is carried out in the fashion of traditional z-scan measurements but in much weaker fields and where close attention is paid to the detuning dependence of the transmitted light. The results are interpreted using numerical simulations and by modeling the sample as a thin lens with a spherical focal length.
We report investigation of near-resonance light scattering from a cold and dense atomic gas of 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms. Measurements are made for probe frequencies tuned near the $F=2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{F}^{\ensuremath{'}}=3$ nearly closed hyperfine transition, with particular attention paid to the dependence of the scattered light intensity on detuning from resonance, the number of atoms in the sample, and atomic sample size. We find that, over a wide range of experimental variables, the optical depth of the atomic sample serves as an effective single scaling parameter which describes well all the experimental data.
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We have demonstrated an atom-optical lens, with the advantage of a small scale and flexible adjustment of the parameters, realized by a far red-detuned Gaussian laser beam perpendicular to the propagation direction of the cold atomic cloud. The one-dimensional transverse focusing effect of cold atomic clouds at the temperature order of 1 μμμK freely falling through the atom-optical lens on the micron scale have been studied theoretically and then verified experimentally. It is found that theory and experiment are in good agreement.
We measure the coherent scattering of low-intensity, near-resonant light by a cloud of laser-cooled two-level rubidium atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. We isolate a two-level atomic structure by applying a 300-G magnetic field. We measure both the temporal and the steady-state coherent optical response of the cloud for various detunings of the laser and for atom numbers ranging from 5 to 100. We compare our results to a microscopic coupled-dipole model and to a multimode, paraxial Maxwell-Bloch model. In the low-intensity regime, both models are in excellent agreement, thus validating the Maxwell-Bloch model. Comparing to the data, the models are found in very good agreement for relatively low densities ($n/{k}^{3}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.1$), while significant deviations start to occur at higher density. This disagreement indicates that light scattering in dense, cold atomic ensembles is still not quantitatively understood, even in pristine experimental conditions.