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Physical Review A

Nondestructive detection of atoms bouncing on an evanescent wave

Alain Aspect, Robin Kaiser, Nathalie Vansteenkiste, Patrizia Vignolo, Christoph Ira Westbrook

Published Dec 1, 1995• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A cloud of atoms reflecting from an evanescent-wave mirror produces a phase shift on the beam producing the evanescent wave. This shift can be used to detect the passage of the atoms. We give a physical discussion of this process and estimate the phase shift. The shift can be greatly increased by using a resonant planar waveguide. We also estimate the signal-to-noise ratio and show how to optimize the experimental parameters of such a measurement. Using the waveguide we find a signal-to-noise ratio of order of 300 in a realistic experimental situation.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.52.4704

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A cloud of atoms reflecting from an evanescent-wave mirror produces a phase shift on the beam producing the evanescent wave. This shift can be used to detect the passage of the atoms. We give a physical discussion of this process and estimate the phase shift. The shift can be greatly increased by using a resonant planar waveguide. We also estimate the signal-to-noise ratio and show how to optimize the experimental parameters of such a measurement. Using the waveguide we find a signal-to-noise ratio of order of 300 in a realistic experimental situation.
We have realized a resonant waveguide structure which enhances the intensity of an evanescent wave at a dielectric - vacuum interface by more than three orders of magnitude. We present a simple theoretical model including the effect of the losses in the waveguide, which gives a good description of the observed behaviour of the structure. We experimentally determine the enhancement factor by analysing the resonance of the reflected light intensity. This characterization technique allows for an easy in situ monitoring of the enhancement, which is a key feature for the understanding of atomic mirror experiments.
A detailed theoretical investigation of the reflection of an atomic de Broglie wave at an evanescent wave mirror is presented. The classical and the semiclassical descriptions of the reflection process are reviewed, and a full wave-mechanical approach based on the analytical soution of the corresponding Schrödinger equation is presented. The phase shift at reflection is calculated exactly and interpreted in terms of instantaneous reflection of the atom at an effective mirror. Besides the semiclassical regime of reflection describable by the WKB method, a pure quantum regime of reflection is identified in the limit where the incident de Broglie wavelength is large compared to the evanescent wave decay length.
Summary form only given. Evanescent wave atomic mirrors have been shown to be very sensitive to the surface roughness of the glass substrate on which the evanescent wave is formed. Non-specular reflection of slow atoms at normal incidence has been observed for surface roughness as low as 0.1 nm. We interpret this behaviour in terms of diffraction of the atomic De Broglie wave on the modulated potential created by the interference of the evanescent wave with light scattered by the rough surface. However these experiments could not separate the specular peak of reflected atoms from the diffuse part. We have developed a new method to measure the velocity distribution of the atoms after the bounce with a much better resolution, using Raman transitions. Two phase locked counterpropagating laser beams induce a Raman transition between the ground state hyperfine levels of the /sup 85/Rb atoms falling from a magneto-optical trap. The resonance condition is only fulfilled for atoms with a transverse velocity controlled by the interaction time between the atoms and the beams. These velocity selected atoms bounce on the mirror and their velocity distribution after reflection can be measured using the same Raman beams, by scanning their difference in frequency.
The paper reports on the optical detection and spectroscopy of ultracold atoms near a gold surface.A probe light field is used to excite surface plasmon polaritons.The refractive index of the atomic gas shifts the plasmon resonance and changes the reflected light power.Thus, the sensitivity of the detection is plasmonically enhanced.Absorption of photons from the evanescent wave is avoided by detuning the laser from atomic resonance which makes the detection scheme potentially nondestructive.The spectrum of the signal is determined by a Fano resonance.We show that atoms can be detected nondestructively with single atom resolution for typical parameters in cold atom experiments.Thus, the method is suitable for quantum nondemolition measurements of matter wave amplitudes.Experimentally, we measure a technically limited sensitivity of 30 atoms and extend the detection scheme to dispersively image the atom cloud near the surface.
We report a direct observation of radiation pressure, exerted on cold rubidium atoms while bouncing on an evanescent-wave atom mirror. We analyze the radiation pressure by imaging the motion of the atoms after the bounce. The number of absorbed photons is measured for laser detunings ranging from 190 MHz to 1.4 GHz and for angles from 0.9 mrad to 24 mrad above the critical angle of total internal reflection. Depending on these settings, we find velocity changes parallel with the mirror surface, ranging from 1 to 18 cm/s. This corresponds to 2 to 31 photon recoils per atom. These results are independent of the evanescent-wave optical power.