Long-distance atom transport: Towards an on-chip single atom detector

Aiping Liu, Jiawei Liu, Zhanfei Kang +6 more

A free-space-to-chip pipeline is proposed for the efficient transportation of single atoms from a magneto-optical trap to an on-chip evanescent-field trap. Due to the reflection of the dipole laser on the chip surface, the conventional conveyor-belt approach can transport only atoms in close proximity to the chip surface, with a distance of about one wavelength. This limitation hinders the efficient interaction between the atom and the on-chip waveguide devices. Here, a two-layer photonic chip architecture is proposed to realize a free-space-to-chip atom pipeline. By employing a diffraction beam of the integrated grating with an incident angle of the Brewster angle, the reflection of the dipole laser is suppressed, allowing the atoms to be brought to the chip surface with a distance of only $100\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nm}$. The pipeline is verified numerically and provides a reliable atom source for a hybrid photonic-atom chip.

Igor Teper, Yu‐Ju Lin, Vladan Vuletić

Lei Xu, L. P. Wang, Guang-Jie Chen +8 more

Trapped atoms on photonic structures inspire many novel quantum devices for quantum information processing and quantum sensing. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid photonic-atom chip platform based on a GaN-on-sapphire chip and the transport of an ensemble of atoms from free space towards the chip with an optical conveyor belts. Due to our platform’s complete optical accessibility and careful control of atomic motion near the chip with a conveyor belt, successful atomic transport towards the chip is made possible. The maximum transport efficiency of atoms is about 50% with a transport distance of 500 μm. Our results open up a new route toward the efficient loading of cold atoms into the evanescent-field trap formed by the photonic integrated circuits, which promises strong and controllable interactions between single atoms and single photons.

Conny Glaser, Dominik Jakab, Florian Jessen +3 more

Val Zwiller, Samuel Gyger, Thomas Lettner +10 more

We develop schemes to generate, manipulate and detect single photons at various frequencies including telecom wavelengths. With detectors based on superconducting nanowires we combine very high detection efficiency with high time resolution and very low noise levels. We demonstrate on-chip implementation of single photon techniques as well as long distance implementations using deployed optical fibers.

Xiyuan Liu, Karl‐Heinz Brenner, S. Groth +3 more