Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 50: Poster Ultrakalte Atome

Q 50.15: Poster

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 16:30–19:00, Poster C2

Imaging ultracold atoms with nanometer resolution — •Tim Langen, Tatjana Gericke, Peter Würtz, Daniel Reitz, and Herwig Ott — Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, 55099 Mainz

We present our experimental setup for high resolution imaging of individual atoms in ultracold quantum gases. The apparatus combines scanning electron microscopy with a standard all-optical approach to Bose-Einstein condensation of ⁸⁷Rb. A condensate of up to 120 000 atoms is produced inside a CO₂ laser dipole trap 13 mm below the tip of an electron microscope. The focused 6 keV electron beam scanning through the cloud of atoms is able to locally produce ions that are subsequently detected with a channeltron ion detector. This allows a precise reconstruction of the atoms’ initial positions only limited by the width of the electron beam. We demonstrate the resolving power by imaging single sites of an optical lattice with a period of 604 nm.