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Physical Review A

Raman-induced magnetic resonance imaging of atoms in a magneto-optical trap

T. A. Savard, S. R. Granade, Kenneth M. O’Hara, Michael E. Gehm, John E. Thomas

Published Dec 1, 1999• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We apply Raman-induced resonance imaging techniques to determine, with a spatial resolution of 12 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m},$ the size of a cloud of atoms in a magneto-optical trap and the location of the centroid with respect to the magnetic-field zero point. These experiments provide a starting point for developing much higher-resolution resonance imaging methods for cold trapped atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.60.4788

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We apply Raman-induced resonance imaging techniques to determine, with a spatial resolution of 12 \ensuremathμm,\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m},\ensuremathμm, the size of a cloud of atoms in a magneto-optical trap and the location of the centroid with respect to the magnetic-field zero point. These experiments provide a starting point for developing much higher-resolution resonance imaging methods for cold trapped atoms.
We demonstrate a technique for imaging magnetic fields using velocity-selective two-photon resonances in a cold atom cloud. Freely expanding (85)Rb atoms released from a magneto-optical trap are exposed to a brief (approximately 1 ms), off-resonant, retro-reflected laser pulse in a lin-perp-lin configuration. Two-photon resonance between magnetic sublevels occurs only for atoms in narrow velocity classes dependent on the magnetic field strength. The momentum of resonant atoms is altered by the pulse, and this two-photon momentum change is easily visible after further ballistic expansion. When the momentum pulse is applied to an atom cloud with finite size, magnetic field variations across the sample result in position-dependent features in images of the expanded cloud. We demonstrate the technique by imaging magnetic field variations over approximately 5 mm with approximately 250 microm spatial resolution.
Recently, we have begun to develop optical techniques for ultra‐high resolution position measurement and localization of moving atoms. The methods employ Raman‐induced resonance imaging in which a spatially varying potential correlates an atomic resonance frequency with the atomic position. Optical methods are ideally suited for high resolution resonance imaging because they permit the study of very small volumes, which facilitates the use of spatially varying potentials with very large gradients and eliminates the need to place mechanical surfaces in the region to be studied. Hence, the methods have many applications to atom optics experiments in both beams and traps, where they can be used to create and measure small scale atomic spatial distributions and to perform spatial correlation experiments. The current experiments demonstrate a new method of imaging employing a spatially varying light‐shift to achieve spatial resolution of 200 nanometers, with a few percent linearity over several microns. Centroids of localized atomic distributions are determined from the χ2 fits with an accuracy of ±20 nanometers. New experiments employing still larger gradients and single atom detection are expected to achieve nanometer spatial resolution, limited by the uncertainty principle.
We are currently developing Raman-induced resonance-imaging techniques for ultrahigh-resolution position measurement and localization of moving atoms.1 We obtain transit-time-limited frequency resolution in intense spatially varying potentials, which correlate the atomic position with the Raman resonance frequency. The use of optical fields for the Raman region permits easy application to very small interaction volumes where extremely large spatially varying Zeeman shifts or light shifts (109-1012 Hz/cm) can be employed to achieve position resolution as high as 7 nm. This leads to quantum-mechanical limitations on the measurement accuracy.
This paper reports on the results of experiments with cold rubidium Rydberg atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The specific feature of the experiments is the excitation of Rydberg atoms in a small volume within a cloud of cold atoms and the sorting of measured signals and spectra according to the number of detected Rydberg atoms. The effective lifetime of the 37 P Rydberg state and its polarizability in a weak electric field are measured. The results obtained are in good agreement with theoretical calculations. It is demonstrated that the localization of the excitation volume in the vicinity of the zero-magnetic-field point makes it possible to improve the spectral resolution and to obtain narrow microwave resonances in Rydberg atoms without switching off the quadrupole magnetic field of the trap. The dependence of the amplitude of dipole-dipole interaction resonances in Rydberg atoms on the number of atoms is measured. This dependence exhibits a linear behavior and agrees with the theory for a weak dipole-dipole interaction.