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Optical characterisation of micro-fabricated Fresnel zone plates for atomic waveguides

Victoria Henderson, M Y H Johnson, Y. B. Kale, Paul F. Griffin, Erling Riis, Aidan S. Arnold

Published Mar 30, 2020• 7 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We optically assess Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) that are designed to guide cold atoms. Imaging of various ring patterns produced by the FZPs gives an average RMS error in the brightest part of the ring of 3% with respect to trap depth. This residue is attributed to the imaging system, incident beam shape and FZP manufacturing tolerances. Axial propagation of the potentials is presented experimentally and through numerical simulations, illustrating prospects for atom guiding without requiring light sheets.

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We optically assess Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) that are designed to guide cold atoms. Imaging of various ring patterns produced by the FZPs gives an average RMS error in the brightest part of the ring of 3% with respect to trap depth. This residue is attributed to the imaging system, incident beam shape and FZP manufacturing tolerances. Axial propagation of the potentials is presented experimentally and through numerical simulations, illustrating prospects for atom guiding without requiring light sheets.
We optically assess Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) that are designed to guide cold atoms. Imaging of various ring patterns produced by the FZPs gives an average RMS error in the brightest part of the ring of 3% with respect to trap depth. This residue is attributed to the imaging system, incident beam shape and FZP manufacturing tolerances. Axial propagation of the potentials is presented experimentally and through numerical simulations, illustrating prospects for atom guiding without requiring light sheets.
We have simulated the optical properties of micro-fabricated Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) as an alternative to spatial light modulators for producing non-trivial light potentials to trap atoms within a lensless Fresnel arrangement. We show that binary (1 bit) FZPs with wavelength (1 μ m) spatial resolution consistently outperform kinoforms of spatial and phase resolution comparable to commercial SLMs in root mean square error comparisons, with FZP kinoforms demonstrating increasing improvement for complex target intensity distributions. Moreover, as sub-wavelength resolution microfabrication is possible, FZPs provide an exciting possibility for the creation of static cold-atom trapping potentials useful to atomtronics, interferometry, and the study of fundamental physics.
We have simulated the optical properties of micro-fabricated Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) as an alternative to spatial light modulators (SLMs) for producing non-trivial light potentials to trap atoms within a lensless Fresnel arrangement. We show that binary (1-bit) FZPs with wavelength (1μm) spatial resolution consistently outperform kinoforms of spatial and phase resolution comparable to commercial SLMs in root mean square error comparisons, with FZP kinoforms demonstrating increasing improvement for complex target intensity distributions. Moreover, as sub-wavelength resolution microfabrication is possible, FZPs provide an exciting possibility for the creation of static cold-atom trapping potentials useful to atomtronics, interferometry, and the study of fundamental physics.
Fresnel zone plates (FZPs), with patterns of 1μm resolution and 10 8+ ‘pixels’, allow the formation of clean, diffraction-limited foci – but have a static phase profile. Spatial light modulators (SLMs) allow dynamic control of spatial beam intensity and phase – but are bulky and currently limited to roughly 10μm pixel sizes and 1 Mega-pixel formats. Here, we present a ‘best-of-both’ kind of FZP, scalable to rings orders of magnitude larger than those possible via direct SLM generation. It is equivalent to a plano-convex donut lens, whereby light’s local intensity and global phase at the FZP map directly onto the focal plane. The same FZP under different SLM illumination can generate: rings and arcs, double-rings, phase windings, and ring lattices (or dynamic combinations thereof). The smooth and adaptable near-field waveguide that this enables will be ideal for Sagnac interferometry with ultracold atoms.
We present work on versatile, compact optical components for waveguided atom interferometry with rotation sensing in mind. These diffractive optical elements: static Fresnel zone plates (FZPs), paired with a dynamic spatial light modulator, expand on the previous design and construction in our group of FZPs for smooth, red-detuned optical waveguides, allowing a wider range of functionality such as dark trapping with blue-detuned light and the generation of multiple, distinct waveguides from single FZPs. Our experiment utilises Bose-Einstein condensates of Rb-87 for interferometry, currently in a free-space configuration, by introducing such waveguides we can reduce the scale of this apparatus while increasing sensitivity to rotation.
We have fabricated a free-standing transmission Fresnel zone plate for the focusing of long-thermal-wavelength neutral atoms. The zone plate was fabricated from a 0.7μm thick boron-doped silicon membrane. The pattern was formed by means of electron-beam lithography, and the final grating was generated by reactive ion etching. The zone plate is composed of 100 zones, the diameter of the outermost zone is approximately 80 μm. The zone plate is designed to focus incident atoms having a thermal wavelength of 17 Å into a 2000 Å spot at a focal length of about 1 cm. A maximum of 8% of the incident flux will be transmitted and focused into the primary spot with this design. The use of diffraction optics for the focusing of an atomic beam is novel in that it does not rely on any electromagnetic forces for achieving focusing. As a result, this approach can be used to focus any particle with a long thermal de Broglie wavelength.