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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Modeling dynamics of atoms in a femtosecond optical dipole trap

I. S. Tarakanov, V. I. Balykin, Yu. V. Vladimirova, Denis N. Yanyshev, Victor N. Zadkov

Published Sep 10, 2010• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Dynamics of atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap formed by a train of femtosecond laser pulses is studied in detail on example of Rb atoms. In computer simulation, it is proved that such a trap effectively confines the atoms at the pumping laser beam power in between 1 mW and 3 kW (pulse duration 100 fs). It is also shown that the resonant dipole-dipole interaction (RDDI) through which closely spaced in the micropotential wells atoms interact between each other becomes essential and can be significantly increased by shining the atoms with resonant probe laser beam. Varying both the parameters of the trap and intensity of the probe laser field, role of the RDDI in the atomic dynamics in the trap is clarified in detail.

DOI
10.1117/12.885103

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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics•Aug 29, 2005•1 citation
Dynamics of atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap formed by a train of femtosecond laser pulses is studied in detail on example of Rb atoms. In computer simulation, it is proved that such a trap effectively confines the atoms at the pumping laser beam power in between 1 mW and 3 kW (pulse duration 100 fs). It is also shown that the resonant dipole-dipole interaction (RDDI) through which closely spaced in the micropotential wells atoms interact between each other becomes essential and can be significantly increased by shining the atoms with resonant probe laser beam. Varying both the parameters of the trap and intensity of the probe laser field, role of the RDDI in the atomic dynamics in the trap is clarified in detail.
The semiclassical theory of atomic dynamics in a three-dimensional pulsed optical dipole trap formed by superimposed trains of short laser pulses (down to a few fs duration), which is based on a stochastic formulation for the dynamics of an open quantum system, is considered in detail. It covers all key features of the atomic dynamics in the trap, including the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) between trapped atoms due to the exchange of virtual photons between the atoms. Analytical solutions are obtained for the relaxation and laser Liouvillians, which describe the dissipation and laser excitation in the system, respectively. The probabilities of single-atom and two-atom escapes from the trap are analyzed. As an example, the theory is applied to computer simulation of Rb atoms preliminarily cooled in a magneto-optical trap that are trapped in a femtosecond optical dipole trap (pulse duration 100 fs). Our simulations prove that such a trap effectively confines atoms at the pump laser power in the range from a few mW to several kW. It is also shown that a near-resonant DDI, through which atoms that are closely spaced in the micropotential wells interact with each other, can be significantly increased by illuminating the atoms with a near-resonant probe laser beam. By varying both the parameters of the trap and the intensity of the probe laser field, the role of the DDI in the atomic dynamics in the trap and its influence on the single-atom and two-atom escape rates are clarified in detail.
Theoretical study and computer simulation results for the stochastic dynamics of atoms localized in an optical dipole trap are presented. This dynamics is governed by the optical trap potential, cooling due to the Doppler effect, and heating due to the emission and absorption of virtual photons, i.e., due to the resonant dipole-dipole interactions (RDDI). It is shown that the RDDI becomes essential for closely spaced atoms, but the effect can be significantly improved by irradiating the atoms in the trap with an additional resonance probe laser beam. By varying both the optical dipole trap parameters and intensity of the probe laser field, the role of RDDI in the atomic dynamics in the trap is clarified in detail.
The spectral properties of atoms localized in an optical dipole trap formed by femtosecond pulsed radiation are studied experimentally. It is shown that the shift of the absorption line of an atom due to the interaction of an atom with the field of localizing radiation coincides with the shift of the line of an atom localized in the field of cw laser radiation. Theoretical analysis shows that pulsed radiation with experimentally achievable average intensity and duration of a pulse makes it possible to implement an atom localization mode in which the line shift is absent.
This dissertation reports on the design, construction, and investigation of a pulsed optical dipole force trap which uses laser light to confine ultracold rubidium (Rb) atoms. Because the laser frequency is detuned far from the atomic resonance frequency, the optical dipole force trap is also called a "far-off-resonance trap" (FORT). The use of pulsed laser light to create an optical trap may find application in expanding the number of atomic species which can be confined. The experiments reported here are principally aimed, however, at understanding the physics of pulsed FORT dynamics in anticipation of using the free electron laser (FEL) at Jefferson Lab (Jlab) to construct a FORT. The Jlab FEL will provide a tunable, high power laser light source enabling the realization of spatially large and/or energetically deep traps which are not presently accessible with table-top laser sources. Here, a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser is used as a pulsed laser source. Since the conservative optical dipole force trap does not cool Rb atoms, ultracold atoms must be loaded into the FORT. The optical dipole force trap is formed at the focus of a Gaussian, 1.06 μm Nd:YAG laser beam which is located at the center of a high vacuum chamber and superimposed onto the center of a pre-cooled Rb atom cloud that has been previously accumulated in a magneto-optic trap (MOT). The performance of the pulsed FORT is compared to a continuous wave mode (cw) FORT which is built using the same laser beam; the operation of the two kinds of FORTs can be switched easily without disturbing the experimental alignment. The dependencies of FORT loading efficiency to FORT and MOT parameters such as FORT laser power, loading time, storage/holding time, detuning of the primary MOT laser frequency, and repump laser intensity are investigated. There are about 1.5×107 ultracold rubidium atoms in the MOT. At 7 Watts FORT laser power, about 8% of the atoms are loaded successfully into the cw FORT and about 5% into the pulsed FORT under similar, but not identical, conditions. In most respects both the cw and pulsed FORTs show comparable behavior. The behavior of both FORTs depends strongly on FORT laser power. As expected, at higher power, more atoms can be loaded into the FORT. Both FORTs also depend on the loading time and holding time.
Summary form only given. Though the resonant dipole-dipole interaction (RDDI) has been suggested for realization of entangling dynamics several years ago, it was only recently that several authors have investigated this interaction in more detail as a method for entangling neutral atoms in optical traps. Unfortunately, the considered entangled states of two-level atoms have very short lifetimes due to radiative decay. This is explained by the fact that radiative decay and RDDI have the same physical nature, and we cannot avoid the former while making use of the later. In the work we solve this conceptual problem by presenting new methods for creation of radiatively stable entanglement in a system of two dipole-interacting three-level atoms.