Berlin 2014 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 29: Ultracold plasmas and Rydberg systems III (with A)
Q 29.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 15:15–15:30, BEBEL E44/46
Patterned Rydberg excitation and ionisation with in-vacuo optical aberration correction — •Rick van Bijnen1,2, Cornee Ravensbergen1, Servaas Kokkelmans1, and Edgar Vredenbregt1 — 1Eindhoven University of Technology, P. O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands — 2Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, D-01187 Dresden, Germany
We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magneto-optical trap, either to the continuum (ionisation), or to a highly excited Rydberg state. To this end, excitation laser light is shaped into arbitrary intensity patterns with a spatial light modulator, such as regular arrays of spots that are spaced several microns apart. Requiring diffraction limited performance, these optical patterns are sensitive to aberrations of the phase of the light field, which occur while traversing the optical beamline. These aberrations are characterised and corrected with the spatial light modulator, without observing the actual light field in the vacuum chamber.