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Review of Scientific Instruments

A technique for individual atom delivery into a crossed vortex bottle beam trap using a dynamic 1D optical lattice

Brad Dinardo, Dana Z. Anderson

Published Dec 1, 2016• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe a system for loading a single atom from a reservoir into a blue-detuned crossed vortex bottle beam trap using a dynamic 1D optical lattice. The lattice beams are frequency chirped using acousto-optic modulators, which causes the lattice to move along its axial direction and behave like an optical conveyor belt. A stationary lattice is initially loaded with approximately 6000 atoms from a reservoir, and the conveyor belt transports them 1.1 mm from the reservoir to a bottle beam trap, where a single atom is loaded via light-assisted collisions. Photon counting data confirm that an atom can be delivered and loaded into the bottle beam trap 13.1% of the time.

DOI
10.1063/1.4972250

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Single Atom Delivery into a Bottle Beam Trap Using an Optical Conveyor Belt and Quantum Coherent Gain in a Matterwave Transistor

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The work of this dissertation falls into two broad categories. In the first part, I describe loading a single atom from a reservoir into a blue-detuned crossed vortex bottle beam trap using a dynamic 1D optical lattice. The lattice beams are frequency chirped using acousto-optic modulators, which causes the lattice to move along its axial direction and behave like an optical conveyor belt. A stationary lattice is initially loaded with approximately 6000 atoms from a reservoir, and the conveyor belt transports them 1.1 mm from the reservoir to a bottle beam trap, where a single atom is loaded via light-assisted collisions. Photon counting data confirm that an atom can be delivered and loaded into the bottle beam trap 13.1% of the time. In part II, I describe a theory and experiment in the field of atomtronics that displays a coherent gain mechanism for a triple-well matterwave transistor oscillator. I start with a well-established semi-classical description of an atomtronic transistor but model the system using a many-body formalism. The quantum model predicts interesting physics when the atoms flowing through the transistor have sufficiently low enough temperatures such that the motional state of a dipole oscillating BEC, placed in the transistor itself, couples atom transitions between high lying transistor energy eigenstates. In this regime, the coupling gives rise to a new gain mechanism that increases the flux of matterwaves flowing out of the transistor system, compared to when the coupling is absent. Our experiments suggest that the gain mechanism is coherent and increases the spread of matterwave momenta that flows out of the transistor.

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We report the realization of a blue-detuned magneto-optical trap (BDM) of BaF molecules. The (1+1) type BDM and (1+2) type conveyor-belt MOT (CB-MOT) are explored. While the (1+1) BDM provides only a weak trapping force, the CB-MOT significantly compresses the molecular cloud, achieving a Gaussian rms width of 316 μm, a temperature of 240 μK, and a peak number density of 2.4×10^{7} cm^{-3}. This performance marks two orders of magnitude improvement over red-detuned MOTs. More importantly, we demonstrate the efficient direct loading of the CB-MOT from a slowed molecular beam, surpassing the loading efficiency of the standard dual-frequency MOT. This surprising result is attributed to the dipole-force-dominated trapping mechanism, wherein the capture velocity increases continuously with laser power, unimpeded by the saturation limit of photon scattering. This method is particularly advantageous for laser cooling and trapping challenging molecular species with large mass, small photon recoil, and narrow linewidths.

Physical Review Letters•Jan 20, 2026•2 citations
We describe a system for loading a single atom from a reservoir into a blue-detuned crossed vortex bottle beam trap using a dynamic 1D optical lattice. The lattice beams are frequency chirped using acousto-optic modulators, which causes the lattice to move along its axial direction and behave like an optical conveyor belt. A stationary lattice is initially loaded with approximately 6000 atoms from a reservoir, and the conveyor belt transports them 1.1 mm from the reservoir to a bottle beam trap, where a single atom is loaded via light-assisted collisions. Photon counting data confirm that an atom can be delivered and loaded into the bottle beam trap 13.1% of the time.
The work of this dissertation falls into two broad categories. In the first part, I describe loading a single atom from a reservoir into a blue-detuned crossed vortex bottle beam trap using a dynamic 1D optical lattice. The lattice beams are frequency chirped using acousto-optic modulators, which causes the lattice to move along its axial direction and behave like an optical conveyor belt. A stationary lattice is initially loaded with approximately 6000 atoms from a reservoir, and the conveyor belt transports them 1.1 mm from the reservoir to a bottle beam trap, where a single atom is loaded via light-assisted collisions. Photon counting data confirm that an atom can be delivered and loaded into the bottle beam trap 13.1% of the time. In part II, I describe a theory and experiment in the field of atomtronics that displays a coherent gain mechanism for a triple-well matterwave transistor oscillator. I start with a well-established semi-classical description of an atomtronic transistor but model the system using a many-body formalism. The quantum model predicts interesting physics when the atoms flowing through the transistor have sufficiently low enough temperatures such that the motional state of a dipole oscillating BEC, placed in the transistor itself, couples atom transitions between high lying transistor energy eigenstates. In this regime, the coupling gives rise to a new gain mechanism that increases the flux of matterwaves flowing out of the transistor system, compared to when the coupling is absent. Our experiments suggest that the gain mechanism is coherent and increases the spread of matterwave momenta that flows out of the transistor.
Efficient loading of single atoms into tightly confined traps is crucial for advancing quantum information processing and exploring atom-photon interactions. However, directly loading atoms from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) into static tweezers in cavity-based systems and hybrid atom-photon interfaces remains a challenge. Here, we demonstrate atom loading in a tightly confined optical tweezer 0.6mm away from MOT by an optical conveyor belt. By employing real-time feedback control of the atom number in the overlapping region between the conveyor belt and the tweezer, we enhance a single-atom loading probability to 77.6%. Our technique offers a versatile solution for deterministic single-atom loading in various experimental settings and paves the way for diverse applications based on hybrid photonic-atom structures.
Coupling identical quantum emitters to a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is a key step for scaling up emitter-photon interfaces for quantum science and information processing. Neutral atoms are attractive candidates due to their indistinguishability and controllability. However, experimental realizations of efficient atom trapping on a PIC while achieving strong single atom-photon coupling has so-far remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate near-deterministic single-atom loading on a microring resonator circuit, reaching single-atom cooperativity parameter C > 1 for strong coupling in cavity quantum electrodynamics. We utilize a precision optical conveyor belt, formed by a moving optical lattice in an optical tweezer, to steadily deliver trapped atoms onto a PIC. By continuously monitoring the transmission of probe photons through the circuit, which is sensitive to the proximity of single atoms near a microring resonator, we detect mean occupancy of 1.5 from 70 occupied lattice sites in a conveyor-belt transport of 4 nm position reproducibility. Based upon real-time feedback, we deterministically transfer the delivered atoms into a stationary trap on the microring, achieving 82% (18%) probability of single-(two-)atom transfer. Our technique can be extended to deterministic, highly efficient atom array assembly, providing a scalable route for neutral atom integration with PICs of complex functionalities.
We report the realization of a blue-detuned magneto-optical trap (BDM) of BaF molecules. The (1+1) type BDM and (1+2) type conveyor-belt MOT (CB-MOT) are explored. While the (1+1) BDM provides only a weak trapping force, the CB-MOT significantly compresses the molecular cloud, achieving a Gaussian rms width of 316 μm, a temperature of 240 μK, and a peak number density of 2.4×10^{7} cm^{-3}. This performance marks two orders of magnitude improvement over red-detuned MOTs. More importantly, we demonstrate the efficient direct loading of the CB-MOT from a slowed molecular beam, surpassing the loading efficiency of the standard dual-frequency MOT. This surprising result is attributed to the dipole-force-dominated trapping mechanism, wherein the capture velocity increases continuously with laser power, unimpeded by the saturation limit of photon scattering. This method is particularly advantageous for laser cooling and trapping challenging molecular species with large mass, small photon recoil, and narrow linewidths.