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Photonics Research

Blue-detuned optical atom trapping in a compact plasmonic structure

Zhao Chen, Fan Zhang, Qi Zhang, Juanjuan Ren, He Hao, Xueke Duan, Pengfei Zhang, Tiancai Zhang, Ying Gu, Qihuang Gong

Published Aug 18, 2017• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We theoretically propose blue-detuned optical trapping for neutral atoms via strong near-field interfacing in a plasmonic nanohole array. The optical field at resonance forms a nanoscale-trap potential with an FWHM of 200 nm and about ∼370  nm away from the nanohole; thus, a stable 3D atom trapping independent of the surface potential is demonstrated. The effective trap depth is more than 1 mK when the optical power of trapping light is only about 0.5 mW, while the atom scattering rate is merely about 3.31  s−1, and the trap lifetime is about 800 s. This compact plasmonic structure provides high uniformity of trap depths and a two-layer array of atom nanotraps, which should have important applications in the manipulation of cold atoms and collective resonance fluorescence.

DOI
10.1364/prj.5.000436

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We theoretically propose blue-detuned optical trapping for neutral atoms via strong near-field interfacing in a plasmonic nanohole array. The optical field at resonance forms a nanoscale-trap potential with an FWHM of 200 nm and about ∼370  nm away from the nanohole; thus, a stable 3D atom trapping independent of the surface potential is demonstrated. The effective trap depth is more than 1 mK when the optical power of trapping light is only about 0.5 mW, while the atom scattering rate is merely about 3.31  s−1, and the trap lifetime is about 800 s. This compact plasmonic structure provides high uniformity of trap depths and a two-layer array of atom nanotraps, which should have important applications in the manipulation of cold atoms and collective resonance fluorescence.
We propose and analyze a scheme to interface individual neutral atoms with nanoscale solid-state systems. The interface is enabled by optically trapping the atom via the strong near-field generated by a sharp metallic nanotip. We show that under realistic conditions, a neutral atom can be trapped with position uncertainties of just a few nanometers, and within tens of nanometers of other surfaces. Simultaneously, the guided surface plasmon modes of the nanotip allow the atom to be optically manipulated, or for fluorescence photons to be collected, with very high efficiency. Finally, we analyze the surface forces, heating and decoherence rates acting on the trapped atom.
We propose a theoretical concept for creating a linear array of dark optical nanotraps in a cylindrical nanohole in a high-refractive-index dielectric film. It is rigorously shown that due to breaking the transversality of plane waves in the nanohole region, a linear chain of deep 3D dark (blue-detuned) trap configurations for neutral atoms, with sizes of less than 50 nm, a period of less than 100 nm and an effective depth of more than 10 mK at an intensity of just 10 kW/cm 2 is formed in the nanohole. The predicted effect could open up new directions in the field of cold atom manipulation and quantum computing on neutral atoms.
Abstract Neutral atom trapping is of importance in precision quantum metrology and quantum information processing where the atom can be viewed as an excellent frequency reference. However, creating tunable optical traps compatible with the optical nanostructures is still a challenge. Here, by introducing the chiroptical effects of a plasmonic structure into atom trapping, an active tunable potential for 3D stable optical trapping at the nanoscale is demonstrated. By altering the incident light from left‐ to right‐handed circularly polarized, the tunable range of position and potential of the trapped atoms can reach ≈60 nm and ≈0.51N mK (N denotes input power with unit mW), respectively. In addition, the blue‐detuned circularly polarized light guarantees the ultralow scattering rate and ultralong trapping lifetime. The trap centers are about hundreds of nanometers away from the structure surface, which ensures the stability of the trapping system due to the ignorable surface potential. This chiral‐based tunable atom trapping system broadens the application of chiral metamaterials and has important impact on all‐optical modulation, atomic on‐chip integration, manipulation of cold atoms, and quantum many‐body systems.
Ultracold atom-traps on a chip enhances the practical application of atom traps in quantum information processing, sensing, and metrology. Plasmon mediated near-field optical potentials are promising for trapping atoms. The combination of plasmonic nanostructures and ultracold atoms has the potential to create a two dimensional array of neutral atoms with lattice spacing smaller than that of lattices created from interfering light fields -- the optical lattices. We report the design, fabrication and characterization of a nano-scale array of near-field optical traps for neutral atoms using plasmonic nanostructures. The building block of the array is a metallic nano-disc fabricated on the surface of an ITO-coated glass substrate. We numerically simulate the electromagnetic field-distribution using Finite Difference Time Domain method around the nanodisc, and calculate the intensity, optical potential and the dipole force for 87^{87}87Rb atoms. The optical near-field generated from the fabricated nanostructures is experimentally characterized by using Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy. We find that the optical potential and dipole force has all the desired characteristics to trap cold atoms when a blue-detuned light-field is used to excite the nanostructures. This trap can be used for effective trapping and manipulation of isolated atoms and also for creating a lattice of neutral atoms having sub-optical wavelength lattice spacing. Near-field measurements are affected by the influence of tip on the sub-wavelength structure. We present a deconvolution method to extract the actual near-field profile from the measured data.
We propose a new class of nanoscale electro-optical traps for neutral atoms. A prototype is the toroidal trap created by a suspended, charged carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanosphere dimer. An illuminating laser field, blue detuned from an atomic resonance frequency, is strongly focused by plasmons induced in the dimer and generates both a repulsive potential barrier near the nanostructure surface and a large viscous damping force that facilitates trap loading. Atoms with velocities of several meters per second may be loaded directly into the trap via spontaneous emission of just two photons.