Hannover 2010 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 21: Poster I

Q 21.50: Poster

Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 16:00–19:00, Lichthof

Pulsed coherent Rydberg excitation in thermal microcells — •Bernhard Huber, Thomas Baluktsian, Harald Kübler, Andreas Kölle, Christian Urban, Robert Löw, and Tilman Pfau — 5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Germany

In order to create quantum devices based on the Rydberg blockade mechanism, it is necessary to have a confinement of the excitation volume to less than the blockade radius in a frozen gas of atoms; i.e. the excitation times need to be shorter than the timescales of the respective dephasing mechanisms. While ultracold gases seem to be the obvious choice, our approach utilizes thermal atomic vapor in small glass cells which offer multiple advantages like good optical access and scalability. Such a system can be realized by confining the atoms to geometries in the µ m regime. Lifetime-limiting effects due to the method of confinement like resonant interactions of the Rydberg atoms with polaritonic excitations in the glass have been studied [1]. Utilizing a bandwidth-limited pulsed laser system for the excitation we can create high Rabi-frequencies and thus short enough excitation times. First measurements of two-photon-excitations permitted probing of the Rydberg excitation dynamics on a ns-timescale.

[1] H. Kübler et al., accepted by Nature Photonics, arXiv:0908.0275