We demonstrate a robust fiber-optics-based fluorescence detector, fully integrated on an atom chip, which detects single atoms propagating in a guide with 66% efficiency. We characterize the detector performance and the atom flux by analyzing the photon statistics. Near-perfect photon antibunching proves that single atoms are detected, and allows us to study the second-order intensity correlation function of the fluorescence over three orders of magnitude in atomic density.
@article{arxiv.0903.3896,
title = {An integrated atom detector: single atoms and photon statistics},
author = {Dennis Heine and Marco Wilzbach and Thomas Raub and Björn Hessmo and Jörg Schmiedmayer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.3896},
year = {2009}
}