Electro-Optical Nanotraps for Neutral Atoms

We propose a new class of nanoscale electro-optical traps for neutral atoms. A prototype is the toroidal trap created by a suspended, charged carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanosphere dimer. An illuminating laser field, blue detuned from an atomic resonance frequency, is strongly focused by plasmons induced in the dimer and generates both a repulsive potential barrier near the nanostructure surface and a large viscous damping force that facilitates trap loading. Atoms with velocities of several meters per second may be loaded directly into the trap via spontaneous emission of just two photons.