Hannover 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 2: Ultracold Atoms: Trapping and Cooling (with A)

Q 2.7: Vortrag

Montag, 8. März 2010, 15:30–15:45, A 320

Manipulation of atoms with optical tweezers — •Lukas Brandt, Cecilia Muldoon, Tobias Thiele, Jian Dong, and Axel Kuhn — University of Oxford, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK

In many implementations of quantum information processing schemes, the control of individual qubits relies on the ability to arbitrarily manipulate, address and couple individual information carriers, like single atoms or single photons. Here, we report on a novel dipole-trapping experiment that will ultimately allow to trap single neutral atoms in separate dipole traps and to displace them individually.

In order to reach a high degree of control on single atoms, we are implementing a scheme that enables us to trap ⁸⁷Rb atoms in an array of individual optical dipole-traps. These dipole-traps are created by imaging the surface of a digital light-modulator. The light-modulator is a digital micro-mirror device (DMD) whose surface consists of 1024 x 768 micro-mirrors. The micro-mirrors can be individually switched. By switching the micro-mirrors, the dipole-trap array can be dynamically rearranged. The DMD is imaged by an isoplanatic optical system [1], which is diffraction limited with a numerical aperture of NA=0.5 and thus is able to focus the light to a submicron spot size.

Recently we have observed trapping of atoms in separate dipole traps. This is the first step towards an array of trapped individual atoms.

[1] E. Brainis et. al., Optics Communication 282, 465 (2009)