arXiv:1706.07666 · Physical Review A
Rydberg excitation of cold atoms inside a hollow-core fiber
Maria Langbecker, Mohammad Noaman, Niels Kjærgaard, Fetah Benabid, Patrick Windpassinger
Abstract
We report on a versatile, highly controllable hybrid cold Rydberg atom fiber interface, based on laser cooled atoms transported into a hollow-core kagome crystal fiber. Our experiments demonstrate the feasibility of exciting cold Rydberg atoms inside a hollow-core fiber and we study the influence of the fiber on Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) signals. Using a temporally resolved detection method to distinguish between excitation and loss, we observe two different regimes of the Rydberg excitations: one EIT regime and one regime dominated by atom loss. These results are a substantial advancement towards future use of our system for quantum simulation or information.