Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 15: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics I
Q 15.87: Poster
Monday, March 23, 2015, 17:00–19:00, C/Foyer
Highly Efficient Free-Space Atom-Light Interface — •Lucas Alber1,2, Marianne Bader1,2, Martin Fischer1,2, Simon Heugel1,2, Markus Sondermann1,2, and Gerd Leuchs1,2,3 — 1Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany — 2Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Department of Physics, Erlangen, Germany — 3Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Canada
We present an optical setup capable of transforming a paraxial Gaussian-beam into a spherical linear dipole wave. This is accomplished by focusing a radially polarized beam with a parabolic mirror covering 94% of the solid angle relevant for a linear dipole. The mode is interfaced to an ion at the focus of the parabolic mirror, providing an ideal probe for the created mode. By reducing our focusing geometry to half solid-angle we are able to monitor the upper-level population of the driven transition, measuring the light scattered by the ion into the complementary solid angle part. Varying the incident power we determine the coupling efficiency to the linear dipole to be 27%. Our setup demonstrates the highest efficiency for coupling between light and a single emitter in free space reported so far.