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Chinese Physics Letters

Trapping and Cooling of Single Atoms in an Optical Microcavity by a Magic-Wavelength Dipole Trap

Wenfang Li, Jinjin Du, Ruijuan Wen, Gang Li, Tiancai Zhang

Published Oct 1, 2015• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present trapping and cooling of single cesium atoms inside a microcavity by means of an intracavity far-off-resonance trap (FORT). By the 'magic' wavelength FORT, we achieve state-insensitive single-atom trapping and cooling in a microcavity. The cavity transmission of the probe beam strongly coupled to single atoms enables us to continuously observe the intracavity atom trapping. The average atomic localization time inside the bright FORT is about 7 ms by introducing cavity cooling with appropriate detuning. This experiment presents great potential in coherent state manipulation for strongly coupled atom–photon systems in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/32/10/104210

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arXiv:quant-ph/0208016•Physical Review A•Feb 28, 2003•5 citations
We present trapping and cooling of single cesium atoms inside a microcavity by means of an intracavity far-off-resonance trap (FORT). By the 'magic' wavelength FORT, we achieve state-insensitive single-atom trapping and cooling in a microcavity. The cavity transmission of the probe beam strongly coupled to single atoms enables us to continuously observe the intracavity atom trapping. The average atomic localization time inside the bright FORT is about 7 ms by introducing cavity cooling with appropriate detuning. This experiment presents great potential in coherent state manipulation for strongly coupled atom–photon systems in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics.
Single cesium atoms are cooled and trapped inside a small optical cavity by way of a novel far-off-resonance dipole-force trap, with observed lifetimes of 2−−3 s2--3\text{ }\mathrm{s}2−−3 s. Trapped atoms are observed continuously via transmission of a strongly coupled probe beam, with individual events lasting $\ensuremath{\simeq}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{s}$. The loss of successive atoms from the trap $N\ensuremath{\ge}3\ensuremath{\rightarrow}2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ is thereby monitored in real time. Trapping, cooling, and interactions with strong coupling are enabled by the trap potential, for which the center-of-mass motion is only weakly dependent on the atom's internal state.
Cavity quantum electrodynamic system with strongly coupled single atoms provides a good platform for studying quantum information processing, quantum simulation, quantum network, and distributed quantum computing. Cooling and trapping single atoms is a crucial technique in the quantum technology. At present, in a high-finesse cavity with finite space, cooling and trapping single atoms is a big challenge, even though it is a mature technique for free space. Great efforts have been made to cool and trap single atoms inside a cavity, and for a trapped atom its lifetime has reached as long as tens of seconds. Developing a more flexible method of cooling and trapping single atoms in a cavity is still essential for a strongly coupled cavity quantum electrodynamic system. In this work, we demonstrate experimentally that a single cesium atom in a cavity can be trapped by utilizing a single optical tweezer settled in cavity mode, and its lifetime is (2.60 ± 0.18) s. The experiment is carried out in a Fabry-Perot cavity, which is assembled by two concave mirrors each with a curvature radius of 100 mm, and cavity length of 335 μm. The concave surfaces are highly reflective, and the cavity has a finesse of 6.1 × 104. The 1080 nm optical tweezer with a waist of 2 μm is formed by an achromatic lens group with a numerical aperture of 0.4. At first, the precooled atomic assemble released from the magneto-optical trap (MOT) is transferred into cavity mode by an optical dipole trap with a waist of 36 μm. Then, one of the successfully transferred atoms is captured by the optical tweezer with the aid of cavity cooling mechanism. A blue detuned cavity locking laser is used as a standing-wave optical trap along the cavity axis. The signal of successfully trapped one atom is obtained by recording transmission of the cavity that will decrease owing to the strong coupling induced vacuum Rabi splitting. Finally, we demonstrate the precise manipulation of the atom-cavity coupling strength, which is achieved by scanning the position of the trapped atom step by step by using a high-precision translation stage. The system realized in this work can be used to study the dynamics of single atom-photon interactions with adjustable coupling strength. In addition, the mechanism adopted in this work is compatible with constructing tweezer arrays inside cavity mode, and thus possesses more flexibility and great potentials in cavity-based quantum entanglement and quantum simulation.
This work deals with the cooling and trapping of single cesium (Cs) atoms in a large-magnetic-gradient magneto-optical trap (MOT) and the confinement of single Cs atoms in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap (FORT). The experiment setup is based on two large-numerical-aperture lens assemblies which allow us to strongly focus a 1064-nm TEM00-mode Gaussian laser beam to a 1/e2 radius of ~ 2.3 μm to form a microscopic FORT for isolating single atom with environment and to efficiently collect the laser-induced-fluorescence photons emitted by single atoms for detecting and recognizing single atom’s internal state. We have tried both of “bottom-up” and “top-down” loading schemes to confine single atoms in the microscopic FORT. In the “bottom-up” scheme, we have successfully prepared single Cs atoms in the MOT and transferred it into FORT with a probability of almost 100%. In the “top-down” scheme, we have achieved ~ 74% of single atom loading probability in the FORT using light-assisted collisions induced by blue detuning laser and with prepared many Cs atoms in the MOT. The relaxation time in hyperfine level of ground state of trapped single Cs atom is measured to be ~5.4 s. To coherently manipulate atomic quantum bits (qubit) encoded in the clock states (mF = 0 states in Fg = 3 and 4 hyperfine levels) of single Cs atom via the two-photon simulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), we have prepared two phase-locked laser beams with a frequency difference of ~ 9.192 GHz by optically injecting an 852-nm master laser to lock the +1-order sideband of a 9-GHz current-modulated slave diode laser. The two phase-locked laser beams are used to drive STIRAP process in the Λ-type three-level system consists of Cs |6S1/2 Fg = 4, mF = 0> and |6S1/2 Fg = 3, mF = 0< long-lived clock states and Cs |6S1/2 Fe = 4, mF = +1 > excited state with the single-photon detuning of ~ -20 GHz. Rabi flopping experiments are in progress.
By integrating the techniques of laser cooling and trapping with those of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), single cesium atoms have been trapped within the mode of a small, high finesse optical cavity in a regime of strong coupling. The observed lifetime for individual atoms trapped within the cavity mode is $\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\approx}28\mathrm{ms}$, and is limited by fluctuations of light forces arising from the far-detuned intracavity field. This initial realization of trapped atoms in cavity QED should enable diverse protocols in quantum information science.
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%.
We investigate cooling and trapping of single atoms inside an optical cavity using a quasiresonant field and a far-off-resonant mode of the Laguerre-Gauss type. The far-off-resonant doughnut mode provides an efficient trapping in the case when it shifts the atomic internal ground and excited state in the same way, which is particularly useful for quantum information applications of cavity quantum electrodynamics systems. Long trapping times can be achieved, as shown by full three-dimensional simulations of the quasiclassical motion inside the resonator.