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Laser cooling using electromagnetically induced transparency

J. Eschuer, Christoph H. Keitel, Giovanna Morigi

Published May 7, 2000• 0 citations

Abstract

Summary form only given. The preparation of quantum systems in pure states is a prerequisite for coherent control. In this context laser cooling of trapped particles to the ground state of the confining potential is a powerful tool for preparing e.g. ions for quantum logic. In particular sideband cooling has been demonstrated to be the most efficient technique, allowing to achieve more than 99% of occupation of the ground state of the trap. This cooling technique relies on two conditions: the Lamb-Dicke regime, and the strong confinement regime. This latter condition, which allows the spectral resolution of individual sidebands of the motion, is however a limitation on the cooling time. We propose a model for cooling single ions inside a trap as an alternative to sideband cooling. The scheme uses electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a /spl Lambda/-level scheme, where one of the transitions is dressed by a strong laser field. For detuning of the dressing laser, the absorption spectrum for the transition shows EIT when the cooling (probe) laser has detuning. Then, by tuning the cooling laser on the dark resonance (or EIT), for a suitable set of parameters and in the Lamb-Dicke regime the atoms are cooled to the ground state by the sideband transitions which are resonantly excited. The scheme achieves efficient ground state cooling and fast cooling rates using a continuous driving, instead of a pulsed one as in Raman sideband cooling schemes. An example is illustrated, where the average vibrational number is plotted as a function of the cooling time, and the final probability of occupation is plotted as a function of the vibrational state. This method may also be applied to reduce phase errors in coherent manipulations of trapped ions for quantum logic.

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Summary form only given. The preparation of quantum systems in pure states is a prerequisite for coherent control. In this context laser cooling of trapped particles to the ground state of the confining potential is a powerful tool for preparing e.g. ions for quantum logic. In particular sideband cooling has been demonstrated to be the most efficient technique, allowing to achieve more than 99% of occupation of the ground state of the trap. This cooling technique relies on two conditions: the Lamb-Dicke regime, and the strong confinement regime. This latter condition, which allows the spectral resolution of individual sidebands of the motion, is however a limitation on the cooling time. We propose a model for cooling single ions inside a trap as an alternative to sideband cooling. The scheme uses electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a /spl Lambda/-level scheme, where one of the transitions is dressed by a strong laser field. For detuning of the dressing laser, the absorption spectrum for the transition shows EIT when the cooling (probe) laser has detuning. Then, by tuning the cooling laser on the dark resonance (or EIT), for a suitable set of parameters and in the Lamb-Dicke regime the atoms are cooled to the ground state by the sideband transitions which are resonantly excited. The scheme achieves efficient ground state cooling and fast cooling rates using a continuous driving, instead of a pulsed one as in Raman sideband cooling schemes. An example is illustrated, where the average vibrational number is plotted as a function of the cooling time, and the final probability of occupation is plotted as a function of the vibrational state. This method may also be applied to reduce phase errors in coherent manipulations of trapped ions for quantum logic.

We discuss a laser cooling scheme for trapped atoms or ions which is based on double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and makes use of a four-level atom in tripod configuration. The additional fourth atomic state is coupled by a strong coupling laser field to the usual three-level setup of single-EIT cooling. This effectively allows to create two EIT structures in the absorption spectrum of the system to be cooled, which may be controlled by the coupling laser field parameters to cancel both the carrier- and the blue-sideband excitations. In leading order of the Lamb-Dicke expansion, this suppresses all heating processes. As a consequence, the double-EIT scheme can be used to lower the cooling limit by almost two powers of the Lamb-Dicke parameter as compared to single-EIT cooling.

We discuss a laser cooling scheme for trapped atoms or ions which is based on double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and makes use of a four-level atom in tripod configuration. The additional fourth atomic state is coupled by a strong-coupling laser field to the upper state of the usual three-level setup of single-EIT cooling. This effectively allows to create two EIT structures in the absorption spectrum of the system to be cooled, which may be controlled by the coupling laser field parameters to cancel both the carrier- and the blue-sideband excitations. In leading order of the Lamb-Dicke expansion, this suppresses all heating processes. As a consequence, the double-EIT scheme can be used to lower the cooling limit by a factor of order of the Lamb-Dicke parameter squared as compared to single-EIT cooling.

Cooling down a trapped ion into its motional ground state is a central step for trapped-ion-based quantum information processing. State-of-the-art cooling schemes often work under a set of optimal cooling conditions derived analytically using a perturbative approach, in which the sideband coupling is assumed to be the weakest of all the relevant transitions. As a result, the cooling rate is severely limited. Here we propose to use a quantum control technique powered with automatic differentiation to speed up the classical cooling schemes. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by applying it to find the optimal cooling conditions for classical sideband cooling and electromagnetically induced transparency cooling schemes, which are in general beyond the weak-sideband-coupling regime. Based on those numerically found optimal cooling conditions, we show that faster cooling can be achieved while at the same time a low average phonon occupation can be retained.

We study laser cooling of two ions that are trapped in a harmonic potential and interact by Coulomb repulsion. Sideband cooling in the Lamb-Dicke regime is shown to work analogously to sideband cooling of a single ion. Outside the Lamb-Dicke regime, the incommensurable frequencies of the two vibrational modes result in a quasicontinuous energy spectrum that significantly alters the cooling dynamics. The cooling time decreases nonlinearly with the linewidth of the cooling transition, and the effect of dark states which may slow down the cooling is considerably reduced. We show that cooling to the ground state is also possible outside the Lamb-Dicke regime. We develop the model and use quantum Monte Carlo calculations for specific examples. We show that a rate equation treatment is a good approximation in all cases.

We propose a cooling scheme for a trapped atom using the phenomenon of cavity-induced double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), where the atom comprising of four levels in tripod configuration is confined inside a high-finesse optical cavity. By exploiting one cavity-induced EIT, which involves one cavity photon and two laser photons, carrier transition can be eliminated due to the quantum destructive interference of excitation paths. Heating process originated from blue-sideband transition mediated by cavity field can also be prohibited due to the destructive quantum interference with the additional transition between the additional ground state and the excited state. As a consequence, the trapped atom can be cooled to the motional ground state in the leading order of the Lamb-Dicke parameters. In addition, the cooling rate is of the same order of magnitude as that obtained in the cavity-induced single EIT scheme.

We propose a cooling scheme for realizing single-photon sideband cooling on particles trapped in a statedependent optical potential.We develop a master rate equation from an ab initio model and find that in experimentally feasible conditions it is possible to reduce the average occupation number of the vibrational levels in one dimension by more than 90% by applying a frequency sweep on the cooling laser that sequentially cools all the motional states.Notably, this cooling scheme works also when a particle experiences a deeper trap in its internal ground state than in its excited state, a condition for which conventional single-photon sideband cooling does not work.In our analysis, we consider two cases: a two-level particle confined in an optical tweezer, and Li atoms confined in an optical lattice, and we find conditions for efficient cooling in both cases.The results from the model are confirmed by a full quantum Monte Carlo simulation of the system Hamiltonian.Our findings provide an alternative cooling scheme that can be applied in principle to any particle, e.g., atoms, molecules, or ions, confined in a state-dependent optical potential.