Coherent coupling of a single 40Ca+ ion to a high-finesse optical cavity

We demonstrate coherent coupling of the quadrupole S_1/2D_5/2 optical transition of a single trapped ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ion to the standing wave field of a high-finesse cavity. The dependence of the coupling on temporal dynamics and spatial variations of the intracavity field is investigated in detail. By precisely controlling the position of the ion in the cavity standing wave field and by selectively exciting vibrational state-changing transitions the ion’s quantized vibration in the trap is deterministically coupled to the cavity mode. We confirm coherent interaction of ion and cavity field by exciting Rabi oscillations with short resonant laser pulses injected into the cavity, which is frequency-stabilized to the atomic transition. Received: 23 August 2002 / Published online: 8 January 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. E-mail: christoph.becher@uibk.ac.at RID="**" ID="**"Present address: Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO 80305, USA