Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 28: Poster Quanteninformation

Q 28.17: Poster

Tuesday, March 11, 2008, 16:30–19:00, Poster C2

Observing Free-Space and Cavity Emission of one Atom in a High-Finesse Optical Cavity — •Holger Specht, Bernhard Weber, Tobias Müller, David Moehring, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany

Using state of the art trapping techniques and cavity cooling schemes we are able to trap a single neutral atom inside a high-finesse cavity for several tens of seconds. In [1] we showed that our coupled atom-cavity system can be used to generate single photons in a controlled way. With our long trapping times and a single-photon production efficiency of 9% we produced on average 10^5 single photons with a single trapped atom. The non-classical properties of the emitted light has been shown in the photon correlations of just one trapping event.

With a new high-resolution camera system we are now able to monitor the atom within the cavity mode from the side, allowing the simultaneous observation of free-space emission and scattering into the cavity. Finally, we also discuss new insights into the dynamics of the system with single and multiple trapped atoms.

[1] Hijlkema et al, Nature Physics 3, 253-255 (2007).