Journal of the Korean Physical Society
Cavity-mediated cooling of a single atom in the intermediate coupling regime
Myounggyu Hwang, Kyungwon An
Abstract
We report observation of cavity-mediated cooling of a single 85 Rb atom in the intermediate coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics. A weak blue-detuned probe laser and a strong far-red-detuned dipole-force-trap laser were both coupled to a Fabry-Pérot cavity, into which a single Rubidium atom was introduced by using gravity. We measured the survival probability of an atom in the dipole-force trap in the presence of cavity-mediated cooling for various reduced levels of the probe laser’s power upon the entry of the atom into the cavity. The highest survival probability was observed when the intracavity probe photon number was (4.9 ± 0.5) × 10 −6 , for which the atom stayed in the trap for up to 0.3 sec with a survival probability larger than 10%.