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Physical Review A

Theory of the Rydberg-atom two-photon micromaser

M. Brune, J. M. Raimond, S. Haroche

Published Jan 1, 1987• 238 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A continuous-wave maser operating on a two-photon transition between Rydberg levels is expected to oscillate with about one atom and a few tens of microwave photons at any time in its superconducting cavity. We analyze in detail the characteristics of this new microscopic quantum electronics device presently under construction in our laboratory.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.35.154

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Physical Review A•Oct 1, 1986•545 citations
A continuous-wave maser operating on a two-photon transition between Rydberg levels is expected to oscillate with about one atom and a few tens of microwave photons at any time in its superconducting cavity. We analyze in detail the characteristics of this new microscopic quantum electronics device presently under construction in our laboratory.
A Rydberg atom maser operated on a two-photon degenerate atomic transition is discussed. This device combines two interesting features: it is a quantum oscillator working on an intrinsically nonlinear effect and it is a micromaser, with only a few atoms and a few tens of photons at a time in the cavity. The reasons why Rydberg atom-superconducting cavity systems are well adapted for two-photon maser studies are discussed, and the main properties of the device are analyzed by comparing it to Rydberg masers operating on one-photon transitions.>
The development of a single-atom maser or a micromaser allows a detailed study of the atom–field interaction. The situation realized is very close to the ideal case of a single two-level atom interacting with a single-mode quantized field as treated in Section 6.2. In a micromaser a stream of two-level atoms is injected into a superconducting cavity with a high quality factor. The injection rate can be such that only one atom is present inside the resonator at any time. Due to the high quality factor of the cavity, the radiation decay time is much larger than the characteristic time of the atom–field interaction, which is given by the inverse of the single-photon Rabi frequency. Therefore, a field is built up inside the cavity when the mean time between the atoms injected into the cavity is shorter than the cavity decay time. A micromaser, therefore, allows sustained oscillations with less than one atom on the average in the cavity. The realization of a single-atom maser or a micromaser has been made possible due to the enormous progress in the construction of superconducting cavities together with the laser preparation of highly excited atoms called Rydberg atoms. The quality factor of the superconducting cavities is high enough for periodic energy exchanges between atom and cavity field to be observed. The interesting properties of the Rydberg atoms make them ideal for micromasers. In Rydberg atoms the probability of induced transitions between adjacent states becomes very large and scales as n 4 , where n denotes the principle quantum number.
We have built the first quantum oscillator working on two-photon stimulated emission of radiation. It oscillates continuously on a degenerate two-photon transition between the levels 40S and 39S of rubidium atoms. The oscillation is sustained in a Q\ensuremath{\simeq}108{10}^{8}108 niobium superconducting cavity at 68.415 87 GHz. At threshold, this new maser system operates with only a few atoms and a few tens of photons at a time in the cavity.
The one-atom maser or micromaser is, in contrary to ordinary masers and lasers, a pure quantum device operating with only a few photons and less than one pump atom on the average in the maser cavity. It is thus an ideal device to study quantum phenomena such as the generation of nonclassical light. The cavity is a superconducting niobium microwave resonator with a high quality factor (up to 3 × 1010). Using a single trapped ion related experiments can now also be performed in the infrared spectral region.
The microscopically pumped maser, or micromaser is a cavity QED experiment intended to be a physical realisation of the Jaynes-Cummings model of a single two-level atom interacting with a single mode electromagnetic field. This is the simplest model that describes the interaction between light and matter, yet it predicts behaviour unexpected from semiclassical models, such as the revival of Rabi oscillations of an atom interacting with an initially coherent field and non-monotonic linewidth as a function of pumping. The micromaser at the University of Leeds consists of a high quality superconducting microwave cavity designed to be resonant with the transition between two specific Rydberg states of rubidium. These two states behave like an ideal two level atom, and couple strongly to the cavity field due to a large dipole moment. These Rydberg atoms are passed through the cavity in a rarified beam such that in most instances when there is an atom in the cavity, there will only be one, closely approximating the Jaynes-Cummings model. I present experimental work on the build phase of the micromaser. Specifically I routed all of the wiring and microwave lines in the cryostat that contains the micromaser, and designed mounts for various components. I also designed several testing methods for probing high quality microwave cavity resonances and quality factors which are presented. Using the Jaynes-Cummings model as a prototype, I demonstrate how extensions to the model can be used to construct universal quantum logic gates that operate on photonic qubits in a multi-mode cavity. This could be realised in a micromaser with a multi-mode cavity. Conversely, I demonstrate that by using atoms as qubits, detuned cavities can be used to generate entangled resources such as the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, the W state, and graph states of atoms. I show that single qubit rotations on Rydberg atom qubits have already been experimentally demonstrated so that in combination these entangled resources are useful for quantum metrology, quantum computation and even tests of quantum gravity.
We present the theory of a truly microscopic maser consisting of a single-mode high-Q resonator in which a monoenergetic beam of excited two-level atoms is injected at such a low flux that at most one atom at a time is present inside the cavity. Both a microscopic theory and a heuristic Fokker-Planck approach are presented. We show that the micromaser exhibits a number of novel features that are averaged out in usual masers and lasers. First, the field is in general sub-Poissonian, which reflects the quantization of both the field and its sources. Second, the onset of maser oscillations may be followed by a succession of abrupt transitions in the state of the field. Finally, as the atomic flux through the resonator is increased, the maser threshold acquires characteristics of a continuous phase transition, whereas the subsequent changes in the field distribution become analogous to first-order phase transitions.