Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 35: Poster 2

Q 35.21: Poster

Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.I+II

Fast Feedback on a Single Neutral Atom — •Christian Sames, Markus Koch, Haytham Chibani, Tatjana Wilk, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany

We extend our feedback scheme, which was successfully implemented to cool the slow radial motion of an atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity [1], to the atom's fast axial motion. The atom is caught in an intra-cavity optical dipole trap where the radial and axial trap frequencies differ by about two orders of magnitude. The interaction strength between the atom and the resonator depends on the atomic position and hence governs the intensity of a probe beam transmitted through the resonator. This leads to a modulation of the photon stream emitted from the cavity at two distinct frequencies, about 5 kHz for the radial and 500 kHz for the axial motion. The large difference enables to distinguish between these two frequencies. Despite of having less than one photon impinging on the detector per oscillation period we have first indication that with fast FPGA electronics it is possible to manipulate the fast axial motion. Furthermore, we report on first results obtained by performing a continuous heterodyne detection of the field instead of measuring the number of transmitted photons.

[1] M. Koch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 173003 (2010).