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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

A slit-type near-field optical detector for neutral atoms with high sensitivity and nanometric resolution

K. Totsuka, Hajime Ito, Tatsurou Kawamura, Takashi Yatsui, Motoichi Ohtsu

Published Nov 13, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given. We have proposed deflection by an optical near field on a fiber probe to control atoms with high spatial accuracy. In this case, the deflection angle is estimated to be 0.1 degree for a Rb atom with an incident velocity of 10 m/s. It leads to the deviation of 10 /spl mu/m from the incident axis at 1 cm. in the downstream. To detect the deflected atoms with an accuracy of 1%, we need the spatial resolution of 100 nm. However, a commercial detector such as MCP has a low resolution of 50 /spl mu/m at most and the highest resolution that has been reported is 1 /spl mu/m to our knowledge. In addition, these are applied to metastable atoms and have less detection efficiency for the ground state atoms we manipulate. For drastic improvement, we present here a slit-type atom detector with a nanometric lateral resolution. Since the number of atoms deflected by the optical near field is very small, it is important to detect atoms with high efficiency. For this purpose, we use photoionization with two-color optical near fields.

DOI
10.1109/qels.2001.961923

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•May 7, 2000•0 citations
Summary form only given. We have proposed deflection by an optical near field on a fiber probe to control atoms with high spatial accuracy. In this case, the deflection angle is estimated to be 0.1 degree for a Rb atom with an incident velocity of 10 m/s. It leads to the deviation of 10 /spl mu/m from the incident axis at 1 cm. in the downstream. To detect the deflected atoms with an accuracy of 1%, we need the spatial resolution of 100 nm. However, a commercial detector such as MCP has a low resolution of 50 /spl mu/m at most and the highest resolution that has been reported is 1 /spl mu/m to our knowledge. In addition, these are applied to metastable atoms and have less detection efficiency for the ground state atoms we manipulate. For drastic improvement, we present here a slit-type atom detector with a nanometric lateral resolution. Since the number of atoms deflected by the optical near field is very small, it is important to detect atoms with high efficiency. For this purpose, we use photoionization with two-color optical near fields.
We describe a slit-type detector for ground-state atoms with nanometer optical near fields. The detector with a slit width of 70 nm and a slit length of 100 µm is fabricated by processing a silicon-on-insulator wafer with photolithography and anisotropic etching. Measurement with a fiber probe of the intensity distribution on the slit reveals that the spatial resolution is 96 nm. Rubidium atoms can be selectively detected by means of two-step photoionization. The detection efficiency is estimated at 25% for Rb atoms with a mean velocity of 10 m/s. The atom detector can be used for atom deflection experiments with a fiber probe.
We develop a nanoslit to detect a small number of neutral atoms in the ground state. The detection scheme of using two-step photoionization is very sensitive and the use of nanometric near-field lights leads to an ultrahigh spatial resolution. An edge-sharpened nanoslit is fabricated with FIB milling. Considering the case of detecting Rb atoms, the polarization-dependent spatial distribution of near-field light generated at the nanoslit by total-internal reflection of a 476.5-nm Ar-ion laser beam is obtained with a scanning near-field optical microscope. Based on the experimental results, the ionization efficiency is estimated for both s-polarization and p-polarization. We also discuss the discrepancy between the experimental value and the numerical one obtained from the finite difference time domain simulations in the p-polarization case.
We fabricated a 50-nm-wide slit on a glass substrate using the lift-off process with a bilayer resist including Cr. The nanometric slit is designed for detecting a small number of neutral atoms in the ground state with high spatial accuracy by way of two-step photoionization with two-color near-field lights. Conducting the finite difference time domain simulations, we drew the spatial profiles of near-field lights generated in the vicinity of the slit for both cases of normal illumination and total-internal reflection (TIR) illumination with a linearly polarized light beam. In the slit-parallel-incident TIR configuration with s-polarization, we obtained a good throughput of 1.1 x 10-2 and the highest extinction ratio of 2.2 x 10-7 for a wavelength of 780 nm. In this case, the ionization efficiency of low-energy 87Rb atoms in the 5S1/2 hyperfine state is estimated to exceed 1%.
Summary form only given. Recently, atom manipulation by using optical near fields has been attracting a lot of interests. Optical near field can be localized in a nanometric region, being free from the diffraction limit in contrast to propagation light. The intensity distribution of optical near field decays rapidly as an exponential-like function. Because such a spatially inhomogeneous light field can affect the resonant force on an atom (the so called dipole force), the optical near field produces the strong dipole force. Using the dipole force of the optical near field, we can expect to manipulate an atom with high spatial accuracy. Moreover, due to the resonant character of the dipole force, we can manipulate an atom species- and state-selectively. The optical near field localized in a nanometric region can be generated on the tip of a sharpened fiber-probe. This kind of fiber probe can be used for deflection of the atomic motion, and then trapping of an atom. To this end, it is very important to fabricate the fiber probe suitable for the atoms used. In this case, we must consider several parameters: a size and a shape of the tip, light intensity, frequency detuning, etc. In order to examine the optimal conditions for the fabrication, we measured and evaluated the optical near-field intensity distribution of the fiber-probe.