Coherent manipulation of atoms by copropagating laser beams (10 pages)

Subhadeep Gupta, A. E. Leanhardt, Alexander D. Cronin +1 more

Yuri B. Ovchinnikov

Optical dipole traps and fractional Talbot optical lattices based on the interference between multiple copropagating laser beams are proposed. The variation of relative amplitudes and phases of the interfering light beams of these traps makes it possible to manipulate the spatial position of trapped atoms. Examples of spatial translation and splitting of atoms between a set of the interference traps are considered. The prospect of constructing all-light atom chips based on the proposed technique is presented.

Julien Dugué, G. R. Dennis, Matthew Jeppesen +4 more

We report the experimental realization of a multibeam atom laser. A single continuous atom laser is outcoupled from a Bose-Einstein condensate via an optical Raman transition. The atom laser is subsequently split into up to five atomic beams with slightly different momenta, resulting in multiple, nearly copropagating, coherent beams which could be of use in interferometric experiments. The splitting process itself is a realization of Bragg diffraction, driven by each of the optical Raman laser beams independently. This presents a significantly simpler implementation of an atomic beam splitter, one of the main elements of coherent atom optics.

Nikolay V. Vitanov, Michael Fleischhauer, Bruce W. Shore +1 more

Tim Freegarde, J. Walz, Theodor W. Hänsch

Justin T. Schultz, Sven Abend, D. Döring +5 more

We observe coherent, cw, 455 nm blue-beam production via frequency upconversion in cesium vapor. Two IR lasers induce strong double excitation in a heated cesium vapor cell, allowing the atoms to undergo a double cascade and produce a coherent, collimated, blue beam copropagating with the two IR pump lasers.