Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 10: Ultracold atoms II: Single atoms (with Q)

A 10.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 15:00–15:15, Audi-B

Manipulation of atoms with optical tweezers — Lukas Brandt, Cecilia Muldoon, •Edouard Bains, and Axel Kuhn — Universtiy of Oxdord, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK

The controlling and positioning of single atoms [1,2] has been the dream for the past decades. This is of interest for quantum engineering and quantum computation. The ultimate goal is to position single atoms with nanometric precision, for example for positioning single atoms into optical cavities [3]. Furthermore arbitrary potential landscapes can be created, so the dynamics of individual atoms can be controlled and observed. By realising controlled collision collisions entangled cluster states can be realised as a resource for one-way quantum computing [4]. We present a new scheme which allows to arbitrarily and independently manipulate the positions and motional properties of single trapped atoms. Cold atoms are loaded from a magneto optical surface trap [5] into an array of dipole-force traps, which act like optical tweezers. This array of dipole-force traps is generated by imaging the intensity distribution of a spatial light modulator with an isoplanatic optical system [6] into the vacuum chamber and is thus forming the optical tweezers.

[1] Miroshnychenko et al, Nature 442, 151 (2006)

[2] Beugnon et al, Nature Physics 3, 696 (2007)

[3] Nußmann et al, PRL 95, 173602 (2005)

[4] Raussendorf and Briegel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5188 (2001)

[5] Wildermuth et al, Phys. Rev. A 69, 030901 (2004)

[6] Brainis er al, Opt. Com. accepted