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Physical Review A

Improved far-field optical trap for cold atoms (molecules) with phase-modulated circular aperture diffraction

Liya Chen, Jianping Yin

Published Dec 18, 2009• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a scheme to trap cold atoms (or molecules) by using an improved red- or blue-detuned far-field optical trap, which is formed by an optical system composed of a binary phase plate and a circular aperture illuminated by a plane light wave. We calculate the relative intensity distribution of the far-field trap and study its dependence on the phase $\ensuremath{\varphi}$ of the binary phase plate. Our study shows that the binary phase plate can be used to improve some geometric and optical parameters of the far-field optical trap, and realize the evolution of the far-field optical trap from a red-detuned trap to a blue-detuned one. In particular, when the phase $\ensuremath{\varphi}$ of the binary phase plate is changed from 0 to $\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\pi}$, the maximum intensity of the far-field trap and its well depth will be enhanced by $\ensuremath{\sim}4$ times, and the corresponding trapping volume will be increased by $\ensuremath{\sim}8$ times, with respect to a trapping beam obtained from the diffraction by a circular aperture.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.80.065401

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We propose a scheme to trap cold atoms (or molecules) by using an improved red- or blue-detuned far-field optical trap, which is formed by an optical system composed of a binary phase plate and a circular aperture illuminated by a plane light wave. We calculate the relative intensity distribution of the far-field trap and study its dependence on the phase \ensuremathφ\ensuremath{\varphi}\ensuremathφ of the binary phase plate. Our study shows that the binary phase plate can be used to improve some geometric and optical parameters of the far-field optical trap, and realize the evolution of the far-field optical trap from a red-detuned trap to a blue-detuned one. In particular, when the phase \ensuremathφ\ensuremath{\varphi}\ensuremathφ of the binary phase plate is changed from 0 to \ensuremath−\ensuremathπ\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath−\ensuremathπ, the maximum intensity of the far-field trap and its well depth will be enhanced by \ensuremath∼4\ensuremath{\sim}4\ensuremath∼4 times, and the corresponding trapping volume will be increased by \ensuremath∼8\ensuremath{\sim}8\ensuremath∼8 times, with respect to a trapping beam obtained from the diffraction by a circular aperture.
An enhanced or improved far-field-diffracted optical dipole trap with a red or blue detuning for cold atoms or molecules on an optical chip is proposed, and our trap scheme is formed by an optical system composed of a binary phase plate and a circular aperture illuminated by a plane light wave. The relative radial and axial intensity distributions of the far-field optical trap and its optical potentials for 87Rb atoms are calculated, and the dependences of the relative intensity of the far-field optical trap and its well depth on the modulated phase φ of the phase plate are studied. Also, the feasibility of our enhanced far-field optical trap is analyzed, and some potential applications of our optical trap are briefly discussed. Our research shows that some geometric and optical parameters of the far-field optical trap can be greatly improved, and the evolution of the far-field optical trap from a red-detuned optical trap to a blue-detuned one can be realized by using our proposed binary phase plate. Particularly, with the change of the modulated phase φ from 0 to −π, the maximum intensity (i.e., the well depth) of the far-field optical trap and its trapping volume will be increased by about four and eight times, respectively. While the modulated phase φ of the phase plate is changed from 0 to π, a red-detuned optical trap will be evolved as a blue-detuned one, and the corresponding trapping intensity and volume will be enhanced by about 4 times. So such an enhanced far-field optical trap scheme has some important applications in the fields of laser cooling and trapping; atomic, molecular, and optical physics; integrated atom or molecule optics; quantum information science; and so on.
In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to build a controllable four-well optical trap for cold atoms or molecules by using an optical system of a binary π-phase plate and a lens illuminated by a plane light wave. We calculate the intensity distribution of the four-well optical trap, and discuss the evolution process of the optical trap from four wells to two wells or form four wells to a single well, and derive some analytical relations between the characteristic parameters of the four-well trap (including geometric parameters, intensity distribution, intensity gradients and their curvatures) and the parameters of the optical lens system. Our study shows that our four-well trap can be continuously changed into a double-well one or a single-well one by moving the π-phase plate, and the relation between the distance of the trapping centers of the four wells or two wells and the moving distance of the π-phase plate is obtained by data fitting. So our four-well trap scheme has important and wide potential aplications in the fields of ultracold atomic physics, cold molecular physics, atom optics, molecule optics and quantum optics,and even in the fields of quantum calculation and information processing, and so on.
We propose a novel, to our knowledge, scheme to form a controllable double-well optical dipole trap for cold atoms (or molecules) by using an optical system composed of a binary pi-phase plate and a lens illuminated by a plane light wave. We calculate the intensity distribution of the double-well trap and derive the analytical relationships between the characteristic parameters of the double-well trap (including geometric parameters, intensity distributions, and intensity gradients and their curvatures) and the relative aperture beta of the lens system. We also extend our controllable double-well trap to its trap array by using a binary pi-phase grating combined with an array of spherical microlenses. Our study shows that, if the pi-phase plate (or the pi-phase grating) is moved along the x direction, our double-well trap (or array of double-well ones) can continuously evolve to a single-well one (or an array of single-well ones) and vice versa, which can be used to study cold collisions between two atomic (or molecular) samples and atom interference with Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in a double-well potential; to prepare quantum entanglement between two macroscopic atomic assembles, even to realize an all-optical double-well atomic (molecular) BEC (including an array of all-optical double-well BECs) by using optical-potential evaporative cooling; to form a novel optical lattice with a larger lattice constant; and so on.
we expound a novel scheme to form a controllable eight-well optical trap by using an optical system of a binary-phase plate composed by liquid crystal and a lens illuminated by a plane light wave.We discuss the bidirectional evolution process of the optical trap from eight-well to four-well,double-well or single-well.The result shows that the proposed eight-well trap can be continuously changed into a four-well,double-well or single-well trap by changing the brewage phase distributing of liquid crystal room optical modulator and vice versa.We also discuss the possibly important appliance of the eight-well optical trap in atom or molecule optical and in other fields.
In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to produce a longitudinal controllable double-well optical dipole trap for cold atoms (or cold molecules), which is composed of a binary π-phase plate and a lens. The π-phase plate consists of two homocentric rings with equal area and opposite phase (0 and π), and its central region is opaque. When a plane light wave passes through the above optical system, a double-well optical trap will be formed at two sides of the focal point along the optical axis. The outer radius of the binary π-phase plate can be controlled by adjusting the radius of a diaphragm, so that a double-well optical trap will evolve and finally combined into a single-well, or vice versa. We briefly introduce the basic principle and derive several optimal parameters of the trap, and show the dependence of the optical parameters (including intensity distributions) on the geometrical parameters of the system. Our study shows that the proposed controllable optical trap can be used not only to trap cold atoms (or cold molecules) and realize all-optical, double-well or two species Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), but also to study the trapped-atom (-molecule) interference, or form a 2D array of double-layer optical traps for cold atoms (or molecules), even to prepare a novel 2D optical lattice, and so on.
We theoretically investigate the feasibility of using intensity distributions of light of a single laser beam diffracted by a circular aperture as optical dipole traps for cold neutral atoms. Localized and cylindrically symmetric traps on the central axis of the circular aperture exist for both blue- and red-detuned laser light. Experimental mapping of the spots of interest using CO2{\mathrm{CO}}_{2}CO2​ laser light demonstrates the existence of these light distributions for laboratory conditions and their agreement with theoretical predictions.