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Cavity QED with Multilevel Atoms

Kevin M. Birnbaum

Published Jan 1, 2005• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The steady-state transmission spectrum of a cavity with two modes of orthogonal polarization strongly coupled to a single atom with multiple Zeeman states is computed. Effects due to cavity birefringence and atomic ac-Stark shifts are included. The transmission spectrum is compared to experimental results for a single Cesium atom trapped via an intracavity FORT in a Fabry-Perot cavity. The excellent agreement of the theory with the data is used to infer the distribution of the position of the trapped atom. The intensity correlation function of this system is also calculated, and found to be strongly antibunched and sub-Poissonian. This effect is explained in terms of photon blockade, based on the structure of the lowest energy eigenvalues. Experimental results confirm the strong nonlinearity at the single-photon level. We present theoretical predictions of the weak field spectra of microtoroid and photonic bandgap cavities strongly coupled to the D2 transition of single Cesium atoms. These calculations include all hyperfine and Zeeman states of the transition and model the cavity as a single-mode, linearly polarized resonator. Finally, we outline a technique for using multiple hyperfine and Zeeman levels of a single atom in a strongly coupled atom-cavity system to generate polarized single photons on demand in a well-defined temporal mode via adiabatic passage. The technique is insensitive to cavity birefringence and only weakly sensitive to atomic position. Variations of this technique for generating entanglement of photon polarization and atomic Zeeman state are also discussed.

DOI
10.7907/h7zs-w151.

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Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), the system of a single atom interacting with a single mode of a high finesse optical resonator, has tremendous potential for use in quantum logic, quantum information processing, and in enabling observation of quantum mechanical effects in the laboratory. The work of this thesis demonstrates a number of steps toward realizing these goals, by employing an experimental system with the strongest atom-field coupling achieved to date in optical cavity QED. The effects of strong coupling in cavity QED are studied for single cold atoms measured one at a time, in real time. The passage of single atoms through the cavity is employed to map out the frequency response of the system, and to demonstrate that quantum rather than semiclassical theory provides the correct theoretical model. The mechanical effects of strong coupling on single atoms are explored, these experiments demonstrating the first trapping of single atoms with single photons. Additionally, strong coupling enables high signal-to-noise ratio for monitoring atomic position at single photon field strengths; this capability is employed to investigate the motion of atoms trapped within the cavity. The transmitted cavity field is used to reconstruct the trajectories of single atoms, thereby realizing a new form of microscopy - the Atom-Cavity Microscope. Technical developments necessary to create the cavities used in this experiment are detailed. Ideas for future extensions to the experiment are proposed; a zero light-shift dipole force trap, and measurement of photon statistics of a single strongly coupled atom (which realizes a photon blockade device) are discussed.

•Nov 1, 2000•16 citations
The steady-state transmission spectrum of a cavity with two modes of orthogonal polarization strongly coupled to a single atom with multiple Zeeman states is computed. Effects due to cavity birefringence and atomic ac-Stark shifts are included. The transmission spectrum is compared to experimental results for a single Cesium atom trapped via an intracavity FORT in a Fabry-Perot cavity. The excellent agreement of the theory with the data is used to infer the distribution of the position of the trapped atom.
The intensity correlation function of this system is also calculated, and found to be strongly antibunched and sub-Poissonian. This effect is explained in terms of photon blockade, based on the structure of the lowest energy eigenvalues. Experimental results confirm the strong nonlinearity at the single-photon level.
We present theoretical predictions of the weak field spectra of microtoroid and photonic bandgap cavities strongly coupled to the D2 transition of single Cesium atoms. These calculations include all hyperfine and Zeeman states of the transition and model the cavity as a single-mode, linearly polarized resonator.
Finally, we outline a technique for using multiple hyperfine and Zeeman levels of a single atom in a strongly coupled atom-cavity system to generate polarized single photons on demand in a well-defined temporal mode via adiabatic passage. The technique is insensitive to cavity birefringence and only weakly sensitive to atomic position. Variations of this technique for generating entanglement of photon polarization and atomic Zeeman state are also discussed.
We calculate the weak-driving transmission of a linearly polarized cavity mode strongly coupled to the D2D2D2 transition of a single cesium atom. Results are relevant to future experiments with microtoroid cavities, where the single-photon Rabi frequency ggg exceeds the excited-state hyperfine splittings, and photonic band-gap resonators, where ggg is greater than both the excited- and ground-state splitting.
The experiments discussed in this thesis focus on the interaction of a single trapped atom with the single mode of a high-finesse optical cavity, in the regime of strong coupling. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction, after which Chapter 2 describes our recent measurements of the transmission spectrum of the atom-cavity system. The spectrum exhibits a clearly resolved vacuum-Rabi splitting, in good quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions. A new Raman scheme for cooling atomic motion along the cavity axis enables a complete spectrum to be recorded for an individual atom trapped within the cavity mode, in contrast to all previous measurements of this type that have required averaging over 10^3-10^5 atoms. Chapter 3 discusses our observations of photon blockade for the transmitted light in the presence of one trapped atom. Excitation of the atom-cavity system by a first photon blocks the transmission of a second one, thereby converting an incident Poissonian stream of photons into a sub-Poissonian, anti-bunched stream, as confirmed by measurements of the photon statistics of the transmitted field. The intensity correlations of the cavity transmission also reveal the energy distribution for oscillatory motion of the trapped atom. Chapter 4 details a set of simple but necessary measurements of relevant experimental parameters such as cavity geometry, linewidth, mirror properties, birefringence, and detection efficiency. The thesis concludes with Appendix A, describing the efficient laser setup we use for our magneto-optical traps.
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) describes electromagnetic fields in a confined space and the radiative properties of atoms in such fields. The simplest example of such system is a single atom interacting with one mode of a high-finesse resonator. Besides observation and exploration of fundamental quantum mechanical effects, this system bears a high potential for applications quantum information science such as, e.g., quantum logic gates, quantum communication and quantum teleportation. In this thesis I present an experiment on the deterministic coupling of a single neutral atom to the mode of a high-finesse optical resonator. In Chapter 1 I describe our basic techniques for trapping and observing single cesium atoms. As a source of single atoms we use a high-gradient magneto-optical trap, which captures the atoms from background gas in a vacuum chamber and cools them down to millikelvin temperatures. The atoms are then transferred without loss into a standing-wave dipole trap, which provides a conservative potential required for experiments on atomic coherence such as quantum information processing and metrology on trapped atoms. Moreover, shifting the standing-wave pattern allows us to deterministically transport the atoms (Chapter 2). In combination with non-destructive fluorescence imaging of individual trapped atoms, this enables us to control their position with submicrometer precision over several millimeters along the dipole trap. The cavity QED system can distinctly display quantum behaviour in the so-called strong coupling regime, i.e., when the coherent atom-cavity coupling rate dominates dissipation in the system. This sets the main requirements on the resonator's properties: small mode volume and high finesse. Chapter 3 is devoted to the manufacturing, assembling, and testing of an ultra-high finesse optical Fabry-Perot resonator, stabilized to the atomic transition. In Chapter 4 I present the transportation of single atoms into the cavity and their coupling to the cavity mode. The strong coupling manifests itself in a strong reduction of the cavity transmission probed by a weak external laser. The atoms remain trapped and coupled to the cavity mode for several seconds until we move them out of the cavity for final analysis of their number and position.
We calculate the probe spectrum for multilevel atoms in a damped, weakly driven cavity supporting two degenerate orthogonally polarized modes. One mode is weakly driven by a linearly polarized external field. The atoms, initially prepared in a mF=0{m}_{F}=0mF​=0 hyperfine ground state, couple to the driven mode by making a $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{F}=0$ transition and to the orthogonally polarized mode by making $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{F}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1$ transitions to other hyperfine sublevels. We compare probe spectra, the intensity of the driven mode, the undriven mode, and the atomic excitation probability as a function of the detuning of the driving laser from the cavity resonance for three- and four-level atomic models. In both cases the spectrum of the driven mode is a vacuum Rabi doublet familiar from the driven, damped Jaynes-Cummings model. The undriven mode spectrum is a triplet with the maximum on resonance for the three-level model while the four-level model has a four-peaked spectrum. We discuss the role of strong coupling to the undriven mode in accounting for the qualitative difference between the models.
We present an experimental proposal to achieve a strong photon blockade by employing electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with a single alkaline-earth-metal atom trapped in an optical cavity. In the presence of optical Stark shift, both the second-order correlation function and cavity transmission exhibit asymmetric structures between the red and blue sidebands of the cavity. For a weak control field, the photon quantum statistics for the coherent transparency window (i.e., atomic quasi-dark-state resonance) are insensitive to the Stark shift, which should also be immune to the spontaneous emission of the excited state by taking advantage of the intrinsic dark-state polariton of EIT. Interestingly, by exploiting the interplay between the Stark shift and control field, the strong photon blockade at atomic quasi-dark-state resonance has an optimal second-order correlation function g ( 2 ) ( 0 ) ∼ 10 − 4 and a high cavity transmission simultaneously. The underlying physical mechanism is ascribed to the Stark shift enhanced spectrum anharmonicity and the EIT hosted strong nonlinearity with loss-insensitive atomic quasi-dark-state resonance, which is essentially different from the conventional proposal with emerging Kerr nonlinearity in cavity-EIT. Our results reveal a new strategy to realize high-quality single photon sources, which could open up a new avenue for engineering nonclassical quantum states in cavity quantum electrodynamics.
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), the system of a single atom interacting with a single mode of a high finesse optical resonator, has tremendous potential for use in quantum logic, quantum information processing, and in enabling observation of quantum mechanical effects in the laboratory. The work of this thesis demonstrates a number of steps toward realizing these goals, by employing an experimental system with the strongest atom-field coupling achieved to date in optical cavity QED. The effects of strong coupling in cavity QED are studied for single cold atoms measured one at a time, in real time. The passage of single atoms through the cavity is employed to map out the frequency response of the system, and to demonstrate that quantum rather than semiclassical theory provides the correct theoretical model. The mechanical effects of strong coupling on single atoms are explored, these experiments demonstrating the first trapping of single atoms with single photons. Additionally, strong coupling enables high signal-to-noise ratio for monitoring atomic position at single photon field strengths; this capability is employed to investigate the motion of atoms trapped within the cavity. The transmitted cavity field is used to reconstruct the trajectories of single atoms, thereby realizing a new form of microscopy - the Atom-Cavity Microscope. Technical developments necessary to create the cavities used in this experiment are detailed. Ideas for future extensions to the experiment are proposed; a zero light-shift dipole force trap, and measurement of photon statistics of a single strongly coupled atom (which realizes a photon blockade device) are discussed.