Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 35: Poster 2

Q 35.66: Poster

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

Vibrational ground state cooling of a neutral atom in a tightly focused optical dipole trap — Syed Abdullah Aljunid, Victor Xu Heng Leong, •Kadir Durak, Gleb Maslennikov, and Christian Kurtsiefer — Centre for Quantum Technologies / Dept. of Physics, National University of Singapore

We have shown that a substantial interaction between light and single trapped atom can be achieved by strongly fosucing the light into the position of the atom[1-3]. However, for optimal interaction the atom has to be well localized at the field maximum. The position uncertainty due to residual kinetic energy of the atom in the dipole trap (depth ∼ 1mK) is still significant after molasses cooling (few 100 nm)[2]. To address this problem we implement a Raman Sideband cooling technique, similar to the one commonly used in ion traps [4], to cool a single ⁸⁷Rb atom to the ground state of the trap. We have cooled the along the transverse trap axis (trap frequency ν_τ=81 kHz), to a mean vibratonal state n_τ=0.55 and investigate the impact on atom-light interfaces.

[1] M. K. Tey, et al., Nature Physics 4 924 (2008) [2] M. K. Tey et. al., New J. Phys. 11, 043011 (2009) [3] S.A. Aljunid et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 153601 (2009) [4] C. Monroe et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4011 (1995)