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arXiv:1605.09051 · Review of Scientific Instruments

Long working distance objective lenses for single atom trapping and imaging

J. D. Pritchard, J. A. Isaacs, M. Saffman

Published Jul 1, 2016• 23 citations
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Abstract

We present a pair of optimized objective lenses with long working distances of 117 mm and 65 mm, respectively, that offer diffraction limited performance for both Cs and Rb wavelengths when imaging through standard vacuum windows. The designs utilise standard catalog lens elements to provide a simple and cost-effective solution. Objective 1 provides NA = 0.175 offering 3 μm resolution whilst objective 2 is optimized for high collection efficiency with NA = 0.29 and 1.8 μm resolution. This flexible design can be further extended for use at shorter wavelengths by simply re-optimising the lens separations.

DOI
10.1063/1.4959775

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We present a pair of optimized objective lenses with long working distances of 117 mm and 65 mm, respectively, that offer diffraction limited performance for both Cs and Rb wavelengths when imaging through standard vacuum windows. The designs utilise standard catalog lens elements to provide a simple and cost-effective solution. Objective 1 provides NA = 0.175 offering 3 μm resolution whilst objective 2 is optimized for high collection efficiency with NA = 0.29 and 1.8 μm resolution. This flexible design can be further extended for use at shorter wavelengths by simply re-optimising the lens separations.
We present a pair of optimized objective lenses with long working distances of 117 mm and 65 mm respectively that offer diffraction limited performance for both Cs and Rb wavelengths when imaging through standard vacuum windows. The designs utilise standard catalog lens elements to provide a simple and cost-effective solution. Objective 1 provides NA = 0.175 offering 3 μm resolution whilst objective 2 is optimized for high collection efficiency with NA = 0.29 and 1.8 μm resolution. This flexible design can be further extended for use at shorter wavelengths by simply re-optimising the lens separations.
We present a high resolution objective lens made entirely from catalog singlets that has a numerical aperture of 0.36. It corrects for aberrations introduced by a glass window and has a long working distance of 35 mm, making it suitable for imaging objects within a vacuum system. This offers simple high resolution imaging for many in the quantum gas community. The objective achieves a resolution of 1.3 μm at the design wavelength of 780 nm, and a diffraction-limited field of view of 360 μm when imaging through a 5 mm thick window. Images of a resolution target and a pinhole show quantitative agreement with the simulated lens performance. The objective is suitable for diffraction-limited monochromatic imaging on the D2 line of all the alkalis by changing only the aperture diameter, retaining numerical apertures above 0.32. The design corrects for window thicknesses of up to 15 mm if the singlet spacings are modified.
We present a versatile and cost-efficient objective with a five-lens configuration, which consists completely of commercial singlets. The home-built objective has a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.44 and a long working distance of 35.9 mm, making it suitable for ex vacuo utilization. A diffraction-limited resolution of 1.08 μm and a field of view of about 210 μm are achieved when a 780 nm light passes through a 5 mm thick vacuum window. Moreover, such a design can be well adapted to a broad range of laser wavelengths (560-1000 nm) and vacuum window thicknesses (0-6 mm) by simply modifying one lens spacing, while maintaining a NA of above 0.43. The characteristics of the objective are evaluated experimentally, which are in good agreement with the simulations. Also, the objective has been successfully used for single-atom trapping and detecting in experiments. We believe that it will find more applications in various cold atom experiments.
In this paper, we present a high-resolution, simple, and versatile imaging system for single-site resolved imaging of atoms in optical lattices. The system, which relies on an adaptable infinite conjugate two-lens design, has a numerical aperture of 0.52, which can in the ideal case be further extended to 0.57. It is optimized for imaging on the sodium D2-line but allows us to tune the objective’s diffraction limited performance between 400 nm and 1000 nm by changing the distance between the two lenses. Furthermore, the objective is designed to be integrated into a typical atomic physics vacuum apparatus where the operating distance can be large (>20 mm) and diffraction limited performance still needs to be achieved when imaging through thick vacuum windows (6 mm to 10 mm). Imaging gold nanoparticles, using a wavelength of 589 nm which corresponds to the D2-line of sodium atoms, we measure diffraction limited performance and a resolution corresponding to an Airy radius of less than 0.7 µm, enabling potential single-site resolution in the commonly used 532 nm optical lattice spacing.
We present two sets of versatile high-numerical-apeture objectives suitable for various cold-atom experiments. The objectives are assembled entirely by the commercial on-shelf singlets. The two objectives are initially optimized at working wavelength of 852 nm with a standard 5-mm silica optical flat window. They have numerical apertures of NA=0.55 and NA=0.78, working distances of 23 and 12.8 mm, diffraction-limited fields of view of 98 and 15 μm, and spatial resolutions of 0.94 and 0.67 μm, respectively. These performances are simulated by the ray-tracing software and experimentally confirmed by imaging line patterns and a point-like emitter on a resolution chart. The two objectives can be further reoptimized at any single wavelengths from ultraviolet to near infrared and for various optical flat window with different thickness by only tuning one of lens spacing. The two objectives provide convenient and flexible options to observe and address individual atoms in single atom arrays or optical lattices for various cold-atom experiments.