Quantum technologies

2016

• J. Gallego, S. Ghosh, S. K. Alavi, W. Alt, M. Martinez-Dorantes, D. Meschede and L. Ratschbacher
  High Finesse Fiber Fabry-Perot Cavities: Stabilization and Mode Matching Analysis, Appl. Phys. B 122, 47 (2016)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  Fiber Fabry-Perot cavities, formed by micro-machined mirrors on the end-facets of optical fibers, are used in an increasing number of technical and scientific applications, where they typically require precise stabilization of their optical resonances. Here, we study two different approaches to construct fiber Fabry-Perot resonators and stabilize their length for experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics with neutral atoms. A piezo-mechanically actuated cavity with feedback based on the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique is compared to a novel rigid cavity design that makes use of the high passive stability of a monolithic cavity spacer and employs thermal self-locking and external temperature tuning. Furthermore, we present a general analysis of the mode matching problem in fiber Fabry-Perot cavities, which explains the asymmetry in their reflective line shapes and has important implications for the optimal alignment of the fiber resonators. Finally, we discuss the issue of fiber-generated background photons. We expect that our results contribute towards the integration of high-finesse fiber Fabry-Perot cavities into compact and robust quantum-enabled devices in the future.

2015

• R. Reimann, W. Alt, T. Kampschulte, T. Macha, L. Ratschbacher, N. Thau, S. Yoon and D. Meschede
  Cavity-Modified Collective Rayleigh Scattering of Two Atoms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 023601 (2015)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  We report on the observation of cooperative radiation of exactly two neutral atoms strongly coupled to the single mode field of an optical cavity, which is close to the lossless-cavity limit. Monitoring the cavity output power, we observe constructive and destructive interference of collective Rayleigh scattering for certain relative distances between the two atoms. Because of cavity backaction onto the atoms, the cavity output power for the constructive two-atom case (N=2) is almost equal to the single-emitter case (N=1), which is in contrast to free-space where one would expect an N^2 scaling of the power. These effects are quantitatively explained by a classical model as well as by a quantum mechanical model based on Dicke states. We extract information on the relative phases of the light fields at the atom positions and employ advanced cooling to reduce the jump rate between the constructive and destructive atom configurations. Thereby we improve the control over the system to a level where the implementation of two-atom entanglement schemes involving optical cavities becomes realistic.

2014

• T. Kampschulte, W. Alt, S. Manz, M. Martinez-Dorantes, R. Reimann, S. Yoon, D. Meschede, M. Bienert and G. Morigi
  Electromagnetically-induced-transparency control of single-atom motion in an optical cavity, Phys. Rev. A 89, 033404 (2014)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  We demonstrate cooling of the motion of a single neutral atom confined by a dipole trap inside a high-finesse optical resonator. Cooling of the vibrational motion results from electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)–like interference in an atomic lambda-type configuration, where one transition is strongly coupled to the cavity mode and the other is driven by an external control laser. Good qualitative agreement with the theoretical predictions is found for the explored parameter ranges. Further, we demonstrate EIT cooling of atoms in the dipole trap in free space, reaching the ground state of axial motion. By means of a direct comparison with the cooling inside the resonator, the role of the cavity becomes evident by an additional cooling resonance. These results pave the way towards a controlled interaction among atomic, photonic, and mechanical degrees of freedom.

• S. Gammelmark, W. Alt, T. Kampschulte, D. Meschede and K. Mølmer
  Hidden Markov Model of atomic quantum jump dynamics in an optically probed cavity, Phys. Rev. A 89, 043839 (2014)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  We analyze the quantum jumps of an atom interacting with a cavity field, where strong coupling makes the cavity transmission depend on the time-dependent atomic state. In our analysis we employ a Bayesian approach that conditions the population of the atomic states at time t on the cavity transmission observed both before and after t, and we show that the state assignment by this approach is more decisive than the usual conditional quantum states based on only earlier measurement data. We also provide an iterative protocol which, together with the atomic state populations, simultaneously estimates the atomic jump rates and the transmission signal distributions from the measurement data. Finally, we take into account technical fluctuations in the observed signal, e.g., due to spatial motion of the atom within the cavity, by representing atomic states by several hidden states, thereby significantly improving the state's recovery.

• R. Reimann, W. Alt, T. Macha, D. Meschede, N. Thau, S. Yoon and L. Ratschbacher
  Carrier-free Raman manipulation of trapped neutral atoms, New J. Phys. 16, 113042 (2014)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  We experimentally realize an enhanced Raman control scheme for neutral atoms that features an intrinsic suppression of the two-photon carrier transition, but retains the sidebands which couple to the external degrees of freedom of the trapped atoms. This is achieved by trapping the atom at the node of a blue detuned standing wave dipole trap, that acts as one field for the two-photon Raman coupling. The improved ratio between cooling and heating processes in this configuration enables a five times lower fundamental temperature limit for resolved sideband cooling. We apply this method to perform Raman cooling to the two-dimensional vibrational ground state and to coherently manipulate the atomic motion. The presented scheme requires minimal additional resources and can be applied to experiments with challenging optical access, as we demonstrate by our implementation for atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity.

2012

• S. Brakhane, W. Alt, T. Kampschulte, M. Martinez-Dorantes, R. Reimann, S. Yoon, A. Widera and D. Meschede
  Bayesian Feedback Control of a Two-Atom Spin-State in an Atom-Cavity System, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 173601 (2012)arXivBibTeX
  ABSTRACT »

  We experimentally demonstrate real-time feedback control of the joint spin-state of two neutral Caesium atoms inside a high finesse optical cavity. The quantum states are discriminated by their different cavity transmission levels. A Bayesian update formalism is used to estimate state occupation probabilities as well as transition rates. We stabilize the balanced two-atom mixed state, which is deterministically inaccessible, via feedback control and find very good agreement with Monte-Carlo simulations. On average, the feedback loops achieves near optimal conditions by steering the system to the target state marginally exceeding the time to retrieve information about its state.