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arXiv:cond-mat/0607358 · Laser Physics Letters

A scanning electron microscope for ultracold atoms

Tatjana Gericke, C. Utfeld, N Hommerstad, Herwig Ott

Published May 11, 2006• 18 citations
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Abstract

We propose a new technique for the detection of single atoms in ultracold quantum gases. The technique is based on scanning electron microscopy and employs the electron impact ionization of trapped atoms with a focused electron probe. Subsequent detection of the resulting ions allows for the reconstruction of the atom's position. This technique is expected to achieve a much better spatial resolution compared to any optical detection method. In combination with the sensitivity to single atoms, it makes new in situ measurements of atomic correlations possible. The detection principle is also well suited for the addressing of individual sites in optical lattices.

DOI
10.1002/lapl.200610028

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Cambridge University Press eBooks•Oct 4, 2018•0 citations
We propose a new technique for the detection of single atoms in ultracold quantum gases. The technique is based on scanning electron microscopy and employs the electron impact ionization of trapped atoms with a focused electron probe. Subsequent detection of the resulting ions allows for the reconstruction of the atom's position. This technique is expected to achieve a much better spatial resolution compared to any optical detection method. In combination with the sensitivity to single atoms, it makes new in situ measurements of atomic correlations possible. The detection principle is also well suited for the addressing of individual sites in optical lattices.
Our knowledge on ultracold quantum gases is strongly influenced by our ability to probe these objects. In situ imaging combined with single atom sensitivity is an especially appealing scenario as it can provide direct information on the structure and the correlations of such systems. For a precise characterization a high spatial resolution is mandatory. In particular, the perspective to study quantum gases in optical lattices makes a resolution well below one micrometer highly desirable. Here, we report on a novel microscopy technique which is based on scanning electron microscopy and allows for the detection of single atoms inside a quantum gas with a spatial resolution of better than 150 nm. Imaging a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice with 600 nm period we demonstrate single site addressability in a sub-um optical lattice. The technique offers exciting possibilities for the preparation, manipulation and analysis of quantum gases.
Ultracold quantum gases offer unique possibilities to study interacting many-body quantum systems. Probing and manipulating such systems with ever increasing degree of control requires novel experimental techniques. Scanning electron microscopy is a high resolution technique which can be used for in situ imaging, single site addressing in optical lattices and precision density engineering. Here, we review recent advances and achievements obtained with this technique and discuss future perspectives.
In this paper, we describe the preparation and detection of ultracold atoms on a microchip with single-atom sensitivity. The detection scheme is based on multi-photon ionization of atoms and the subsequent guiding of the generated ions by ion optics to a channel electron multiplier. We resolve single atoms with a detection efficiency above 60%. The detector is suitable for real-time observations of static and dynamic processes in ultracold quantum gases. Although the ionization is destructive, sampling a small subset of the atomic distribution is sufficient for the determination of the desired information. We take full high-resolution spectra of ultracold atoms by ionizing only 5% of the atoms. Using an additional microwave near 6.8 GHz, the detection scheme becomes energy, position and state selective. This can be used for in situ determination of the energy distribution and temperature of atom clouds inside the trap and applied for future correlation measurements.
We describe an experiment that allows for the study of ultracold quantum gases by electron impact ionization. The setup combines a scanning electron microscope and an apparatus for the production of Bose-Einstein condensates of rubidium atoms. With a diameter as small as 50 nm, the electron beam locally interacts with the much larger condensate. The produced ions are used to probe the many-body system with single atom sensitivity. We discuss the general scheme of this technique with special emphasis on the technical equipment and on the specific phenomenology of the particular collisional system.
We propose a versatile experimental probe for cold atomic gases analogous to the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in condensed matter. This probe uses the coherent coupling of a single particle to the system. Depending on the measurement sequence, our probe allows us to obtain either the local density and spatial density correlations, with a resolution on the nanometer scale, or the single particle correlation function in real time. We discuss applications of this scheme to the various possible phases for a two dimensional Hubbard system of fermions in an optical lattice.
Ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide an extremely clean and controllable setting to explore quantum many-body phases of matter. Here we give a brief review of the strong-correlation physics that has been realized using such ultracold atoms in optical lattices ranging from the realization of Hubbard models to studies of quantum magnetism and the detection of single atoms with lattice site resolution. All this has opened up fundamentally new opportunities for the investigation of quantum many-body systems. Introduction Over the past years, ultracold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as versatile new systems to explore the physics of quantum many-body systems. On the one hand, they can be helpful in gaining a better understanding of known phases of matter and their dynamical behavior; on the other hand, they allow one to realize completely novel quantum systems that have not been studied before in nature [1, 2, 3]. Commonly, the approach of exploring quantum many-body systems in such a way is referred to as “quantum simulations.” Examples of some of the first strongly interacting many-body phases that have been realized both in lattices and in the continuum include the quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator [4, 5, 6], fermionic Mott insulators [7, 8], the achievement of a Tonks- Girardeau gas [9, 10], and the realization of the Bose-Einsten condensate (BEC)– Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) crossover (see also Chapter 12) in Fermi gas mixture [11] using Feshbach resonances [12]. In almost all of these experiments, detection was limited to time-of-flight imaging or more refined derived techniques that mainly characterized the momentum distribution of the quantum gas [2]. For several years, researchers in the field have therefore aspired to employ in situ single-particle detection methods for the analysis of ultracold quantum gases. Only recently has it become possible to implement such imaging techniques, marking a milestone for the characterization and manipulation of ultracold quantum gases [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. In our discussion, we will focus on one of the most successful of these techniques based on high-resolution fluorescence imaging. Despite being a rather new technique, such quantum gas microscopy has already proven to be an enabling technology for probing and manipulating quantum many-body systems. For the first time, controllable and strongly interacting many-body systems, as realized with ultracold atoms, could be observed on a local scale [17, 16].