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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

Atomic cavities

C.G. Aminoff, Philippe Bouyer, Claude N. Cohen-Tannoudji, Jean Dalibard, Pierre Desbiolles, Andrew M. Steane, Pascal Szriftgiser

Published Jan 1, 1994• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given, as follows. Atomic cavities provide a convenient way to store atoms without perturbing them too much. We have recently built such a cavity for cesium atoms. A curved mirror was made for an evanescent wave, formed by internal reflection of a quasiresonant laser beam at a curved glass surface. A cold cloud of cesium atoms was dropped onto the mirror (Fig. 1a) and observed to rebound up to 10 times (Fig. 1b). The mirror size and reflectivity were studied, and reasonable agreement with a simple theory was obtained. With 800 mW of laser power and a mirror of 1 mm diameter, we observed up to 73% of the atoms returning after each bounce. We will present these experimental results, and we will also discuss some prospects to investigate the quantum nature of the atomic motion in such a cavity.

DOI
10.1109/eqec.1994.698512

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Summary form only given, as follows. Atomic cavities provide a convenient way to store atoms without perturbing them too much. We have recently built such a cavity for cesium atoms. A curved mirror was made for an evanescent wave, formed by internal reflection of a quasiresonant laser beam at a curved glass surface. A cold cloud of cesium atoms was dropped onto the mirror (Fig. 1a) and observed to rebound up to 10 times (Fig. 1b). The mirror size and reflectivity were studied, and reasonable agreement with a simple theory was obtained. With 800 mW of laser power and a mirror of 1 mm diameter, we observed up to 73% of the atoms returning after each bounce. We will present these experimental results, and we will also discuss some prospects to investigate the quantum nature of the atomic motion in such a cavity.
A curved mirror for atoms was made from an evanescent wave, formed by internal reflection of a quasiresonant laser beam at a curved glass surface. A cold cloud of cesium atoms was dropped onto the mirror and observed to rebound more than 8 times. The mirror size and reflectivity were studied, and reasonable agreement with a simple theory obtained. With 800 mW of laser power and a mirror of 1 mm diameter, we observed up to 73% of the atoms returning after each bounce, the losses being mostly during the free flight between bounces.
We have demonstrated that a suitably magnetized surface can be used to retroreflect cold atoms for applications in atom optics. This has some advantages relative to evanescent wave mirrors because no light is involved. Multiple bounces of cold rubidium atoms have been observed for times up to 1 s in a trap formed by gravity and a 2 cm diameter spherical mirror made from a flexible computer disk (`floppy disk'). We have studied the dynamics of the atoms bouncing in this trap from several different heights up to 40.5 mm and we conclude that the atoms are reflected specularly and with reflectivity 1.01(3). The performance of this mirror is limited at present by collisions with the background gas and by unwanted harmonics in the magnetization of the surface. This is the first in a series of papers concerning the use of magnetized surfaces in atom optics.
Multiple bounces of cold rubidium atoms have been observed for times up to one second in a trap formed by gravity and a 2 cm-diameter spherical mirror made from a sinusoidally magnetized floppy disk. We have studied the dynamics of the atoms bouncing in this trap from several different heights up to 40.5 mm and we conclude that the atoms are reflected specularly and with reflectivity 1.01(3). Slight roughness of the mirror is caused by harmonics in the magnetization of the surface and by discontinuities at the boundaries between recorded tracks. As the next step in this atom optics program we propose using a magnetic mirror to create a 2D atomic gas. We discuss how cold atoms can be loaded into the ground state of a static magnetic potential well that exists above the surface of the mirror as a consequence of the intermediate-field Zeeman effect.
In the reflection of atoms by evanescent wave the amplitude of the light field can be changed not necessarily adiabatically slow in comparison with relaxation of internal atomic motion. An approach to describe the reflection of atoms by evanescent wave is the dressed state picture. An atomic mirror can be formed also by a focused elliptical laser beam, in which atoms intersect near the waist of the laser beam. A simple evanescent wave allows one to create a high homogeneous field along the surface of an atomic mirror, without a limitation on the intensity of the field in an evanescent wave. The size of an atomic mirror is usually restricted by the laser intensity required by the reflection. There are several processes at the reflection of atom by light which could lead to non ideal properties of the mirror. One of the remarkable properties of an atomic mirror is its ability to reflect atoms in a certain quantum state.
We present an experiment where a cloud of cold caesium atoms is dropped onto an atomic mirror formed by a laser evanescent wave, and is cooled during the reflection. This cooling is due to a single Sisyphus process, transferring atoms from one ground-state hyperfine level to another, less coupled to the evanescent wave. We compare our results with a simple one-dimensional theoretical model. We also give the first experimental evidence for a large increase in the confinement lifetime of the atoms in this ‘gravitational cavity’ because of the cooling process.
We have designed a gravitational cavity for ultra-cold atoms using an atomic mirror made from an evanescent laser wave.By a temporal variation of the evanescent wave intensity, we have realized various atom optics components such as temporal slits and phase modulators.We have also designed an atom interferometer using this cavity which proves that the coherence of the de Broglie waves can be preserved during the bounce of the atoms on the mirror.Finally we show that an efficient cooling of the atoms inside the cavity can be achieved using a Sisyphus process during the bounce.