Calculation of axial optical forces exerted on medium-sized particles by optical trap

Optical trapping has become an efficient technique of trapping and manipulating micrometer and sub-micrometer dimension particles. Particles in the range between the applicable regime of ray optics theory (ROT) and the Rayleigh regime (so-called medium-sized particles) are focused on. By using ROT and the generalized Lorenz–Mie theory (GLMT), axial optical forces and their dependences on particle sizes and beam waists are presented. Furthermore, by comparing the numerical results of these two theories, the applicability of the GLMT to particles of arbitrary size and the limit of ROT in the region of small particles are analyzed. A new criterion of the applicable region of ROT is obtained, i.e. the relative particle size β=2πa/λ20, where a is the particle radius and λ is the wavelength of light. The theoretical results will be of great help to the design and optimization of the most efficient optical trap.     

Clock-transition spectrum of ^171yb atoms in a one-dimensional optical lattice

An optical atomic clock with 171Yb atoms is devised and tested. By using a two-stage Doppler cooling technique, the 171Yb atoms are cooled down to a temperature of 6 ± 3 μK, which is close to the Doppler limit. Then, the cold 171Yb atoms are loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice with a wavelength of 759 nm in the Lamb-Dicke regime. Furthermore, these cold 171Yb atoms are excited from the ground-state 1S0 to the excited-state 3P0 by a clock laser with a wavelength of 578 nm. Finally, the 1S0-3P0 clock-transition spectrum of these 171Yb atoms is obtained by measuring the dependence of the population of the ground-state 1S0 upon the clock-laser detuning.     

A nonadiabatic semi-classical method for dynamics of atoms in optical lattices

We develop a semi-classical method to simulate the motion of atoms in a dissipative optical lattice. Our method treats the internal states of the atom quantum mechanically, including all nonadiabatic couplings, while position and momentum are treated as classical variables. We test our method in the one-dimensional case. Excellent agreement with fully quantum mechanical simulations is found. Our results are much more accurate than those of earlier semi-classical methods based on the adiabatic approximation.     

Magneto optical trap for neutral mercury atoms

Due to its low sensitivity to blackbody radiation, neutral mercury is a good candidate for the most accurate optical lattice clock. Here we report the observation of cold mercury atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Because of the high vapor pressure at room temperature, the mercury source and the cold pump were cooled down to 40℃ and 70 ℃, respectively, to keep the science chamber in an ultra-high vacuum of 6×10 9 Pa. Limited by the power of the UV cooling laser, the one beam folded MOT configuration was adopted, and 1.5×10 5 Hg-202 atoms were observed by fluorescence detection.     

Raman sideband cooling of rubidium atoms in optical lattice

We develop a simple and practical scheme to apply sideband cooling to a cloud of rubidium atoms. A sample containing 4 × 10~(70) ~(87)Rb is trapped in a far red detuned optical lattice. Through optimizing the relevant parameters, i.e., laser detuning, magnetic field, polarization, and duration time, a temperature around 1.5 μK and phase space density close to 1/500 are achieved. Compared with polarization gradient cooling, the temperature decreases by around one order of magnitude. This technique could be used in high precision measurement such as atomic clocks and atom interferometer. It could also serve as a precooling means before evaporation cooling in a dipole trap, and may be a promising method of achieving quantum degeneracy with purely optical means.     

Experiments on trapping ytterbium atoms in optical lattices

Experiments on trapping ytterbium atoms in various optical lattices are presented. After the two-stage cooling, first in a blue magneto-optical trap and then in a green magneto-optical trap, the ultracold 171 Yb atoms are successfully loaded into one-, two-, and three-dimensional optical lattices operating at the Stark-free wavelength, respectively. The temperature, number, and lifetime of cold 171 Yb atoms in one-dimensional lattice are measured. After optimization, the one-dimensional lattice with cold 171Yb atoms is used for developing an ytterbium optical clock.     

A diode-laser optical frequency standard based on laser-cooled Ca atoms: Sub-kilohertz spectroscopy by optical shelving detection

We report an optical frequency standard at 657 nm based on laser-cooled/trapped Ca atoms. The system consists of a novel, compact magneto-optic trap which uses 50 mW of frequency-doubled diode laser light at 423 nm and can trap >10⁷ Ca atoms in 20 ms. High resolution spectroscopy on this atomic sample using the narrow 657 nm intercombination line resolves linewidths (FWHM) as narrow as 400 Hz, the natural linewidth of the transition. The spectroscopic signal-to-noise ratio is enhanced by an order of magnitude with the implementation of a “shelving" detection scheme on the 423 nm transition. Our present apparatus achieves a fractional frequency instability of in 1 s with a potential atom shot-noise-limited performance of and excellent prospects for high accuracy. Received 2 November 1998     

Quantum phase transition of alkaline-earth fermionic atoms confined in an optical superlattice

Using the density matrix renormalization group method, we evaluate the spin and charge gaps of alkaline-earth fermionic atoms in a periodic one-dimensional optical superlattice. The number of delocalized atoms is equal to the lattice size and we consider an antiferromagnetic coupling between delocalized and localized atoms. We found a quantum phase transition from a Kondo insulator spin liquid state without confining potential to a charge-gapped antiferromagnetic state with nonzero potential. For each on-site coupling, there is a critical potential point for which the spin gap vanishes and its value increases linearly with the local interaction.     

Trapping and cooling cesium atoms in a speckle field

We present the results of two experiments where cold cesium atoms are trapped in a speckle field. In the first experiment, a YAG laser creates the speckle pattern and induces a far-detuned dipole potential which is a nearly-conservative potential. Localization of atoms near the intensity maxima of the speckle field is observed. In a second experiment we use two counterpropagating laser beams tuned close to a resonance line of cesium and in the linlin configuration, one of them being modulated by a holographic diffuser that creates the speckle field. Three-dimensional cooling is observed. Variations of the temperature and of the spatial diffusion coefficient with the size of a speckle grain are presented. Received 16 December 1998 and Received in final form 16 April 1999     

Calculation and optical measurement of laser trapping forces on non-spherical particles

Optical trapping, where microscopic particles are trapped and manipulated by light is a powerful and widespread technique, with the single-beam gradient trap (also known as optical tweezers) in use for a large number of biological and other applications. The forces and torques acting on a trapped particle result from the transfer of momentum and angular momentum from the trapping beam to the particle. Despite the apparent simplicity of a laser trap, with a single particle in a single beam, exact calculation of the optical forces and torques acting on particles is difficult. Calculations can be performed using approximate methods, but are only applicable within their ranges of validity, such as for particles much larger than, or much smaller than, the trapping wavelength, and for spherical isotropic particles. This leaves unfortunate gaps, since wavelength-scale particles are of great practical interest because they are readily and strongly trapped and are used to probe interesting microscopic and macroscopic phenomena, and non-spherical or anisotropic particles, biological, crystalline, or other, due to their frequent occurance in nature, and the possibility of rotating such objects or controlling or sensing their orientation. The systematic application of electromagnetic scattering theory can provide a general theory of laser trapping, and render results missing from existing theory. We present here calculations of force and torque on a trapped particle obtained from this theory and discuss the possible applications, including the optical measurement of the force and torque.     

光晶格中的冷原子

光晶格是一种人造光晶体,它是由反向传播激光束干涉形成的周期性势阱构成的。光晶格的周期、势深等参量可以通过调节激光的强度和频率等来准确控制。作为一个纯净可控的实验平台,光晶格已经逐渐成长为模拟多体系统的最便利的工具之一。文章对光晶格中冷原子进行了简单的介绍,重点阐述了玻色—爱因斯坦凝聚、激光冷却、光晶格和量子相变等内容。     

Accumulation of chromium metastable atoms into an optical trap

We report the fast accumulation of a large number of metastable ⁵²Cr atoms in a mixed trap, formed by the superposition of a strongly confining optical trap and a quadrupolar magnetic trap. The steady state is reached after about 400 ms, providing a cloud of more than one million metastable atoms at a temperature of about 100 μK, with a peak density of 10¹⁸ atoms m^-3. We have optimized the loading procedure, and measured the light shift of the ⁵D₄ state by analyzing how the trapped atoms respond to a parametric excitation. We compare this result to a theoretical evaluation based on the available spectroscopic data for chromium atoms.     

Simulation and detection of massive Dirac fermions with cold atoms in one-dimensional optical lattice

We propose a simple but feasible experimental scheme to simulate and detect Dirac fermions with cold atoms trapped in one-dimensional optical lattice. In our scheme, through tuning the laser intensity, the one-dimensional optical lattice can have two sites in each unit cell and the atoms around the low energy behave as massive Dirac fermions. Furthermore, we show that these relativistic quasiparticles can be detected experimentally by using atomic density profile measurements and Bragg scattering.     

Electrodynamic trap for neutral atoms

An electrodynamic trap is proposed that stores cold neutral atoms or nonpolar molecules in their ground state as well as in excited states by means of the quadratic Stark effect. The trap uses an oscillating hexapole field and a superposed static homogeneous field. The dynamics of an atom in this trap can be described as a harmonic oscillation in a static pseudopotential. Stability criteria and sample parameters for a number of atomic species are given. Received: 7 August 1998 / Received in final form: 7 January 1999     

Three-dimensional non-destructive optical evaluation of laser-processing performance using optical coherence tomography

We demonstrate the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) as a non-destructive diagnostic tool for evaluating laser-processing performance by imaging the features of a pit and a rim. A pit formed on a material at different laser-processing conditions is imaged using both a conventional scanning electron microscope (SEM) and OCT. Then using corresponding images, the geometrical characteristics of the pit are analyzed and compared. From the results, we could verify the feasibility and the potential of the application of OCT to the monitoring of the laser-processing performance.     

Semiclassical solitons in strongly correlated systems of ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices

We investigate theoretically soliton excitations and dynamics of their formation in strongly correlated systems of ultracold bosonic atoms in two and three dimensional optical lattices. We derive equations of nonlinear hydrodynamics in the regime of strong interactions and incommensurate fillings, when atoms can be treated as hard core bosons. When parameters change in one direction only we obtain Korteweg–de Vries type equation away from half-filling and modified KdV equation at half-filling. We apply this general analysis to a problem of the decay of the density step. We consider stability of one dimensional solutions to transverse fluctuations. Our results are also relevant for understanding nonequilibrium dynamics of lattice spin models.     

Anisotropic velocity distributions in 3D dissipative optical lattices

We present a direct measurement of velocity distributions in two dimensions by using an absorption imaging technique in a 3D near resonant optical lattice. The results show a clear difference in the velocity distributions for the different directions. The experimental results are compared with a numerical 3D semi-classical Monte-Carlo simulation. The numerical simulations are in good qualitative agreement with the experimental results. Received 3 September 2002 / Received in final form 25 October 2002 Published online 11 February 2003     

Microfabricated magnetic waveguides for neutral atoms

We describe how tightly confining magnetic waveguides for atoms can be created with microfabricated or nanofabricated wires. Rubidium atoms guided in the devices we have fabricated would have a transverse mode energy spacing of K. We discuss the creation of a single-mode waveguide for atom interferometry whose depth is comparable to magneto-optical trap (MOT) temperatures. We also discuss the application of microfabricated waveguides to low-dimensional systems of quantum degenerate gases, and show that confinement can be strong enough to observe fermionization in a strongly interacting bosonic ensemble. Received 1st December 1998 and Received in final form 23 February 1999     

Single-beam optical bottle for cold atoms using a conical lens

We report a new method to generate an optical dipole potential with a null intensity region surrounded in all directions by light walls. This is achieved with a simple scheme based on a conical lens. Applications to optical trapping of neutral atoms are discussed. Received 4 September 2000 and Received in final form 21 January 2001