Related papers: In situ characterization of an optical cavity usin…
We present the experimental realization of a compressible blue detuned crossed dipole trap for cold atoms allowing for fast dynamical compression (~ 5 - 10 ms) of 5x10^7 Rubidium atoms up to densities of ~ 10^13 cm^-3. The dipole trap…
Macroscopic arrays of cold atoms trapped in optical cavities can reach the strong atom-light collective coupling regime thanks to the simultaneous interactions of the cavity mode with the atomic ensemble. In a recent work we reported a…
Optical lattices serve as fundamental building blocks for atomic quantum technology. However, the scale and resolution of these lattices are diffraction-limited to the light wavelength. In conventional lattices, achieving tight confinement…
We suggest using a two-color evanescent light field around a subwavelength-diameter fiber to trap and guide atoms. The optical fiber carries a red-detuned light and a blue-detuned light, with both modes far from resonance. When both input…
We present enabling experimental tools and atom interferometer implementations in a vertical "fountain" geometry with ytterbium Bose-Einstein condensates. To meet the unique challenge of the heavy, non-magnetic atom, we apply a shaped…
We present combined measurements of the spatially-resolved optical spectrum and the total excited-atom number in an ultracold gas of three-level atoms under electromagnetically induced transparency conditions involving high-lying Rydberg…
We experimentally demonstrate collective strong coupling, optical bi-stability (OB) and all-optical switching in a system consisting of ultracold 85Rb atoms, trapped in a dark magneto-optical trap (DMOT), coupled to an optical Fabry-Perot…
We present experimental techniques and results related to the optimization and characterization of our nanofiber-based atom trap [Vetsch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 203603 (2010)]. The atoms are confined in an optical lattice which is…
We introduce an all-optical quantum-enhanced diagnostic for electric fields in low-temperature plasmas. Trace amounts of rubidium vapor, added to argon plasma, allow us to produce spectrally narrow electric field-sensitive optical…
We present an experimental technique that enables the preparation of defect-free arrays of 87Rb atoms within a microscopic high-finesse optical standing-wave cavity. By employing optical tweezers, we demonstrate atom positioning with a…
We demonstrate a tunable, narrow-band filter based on optical-pumping-induced circular dichroism in rubidium vapor. The filter achieves a peak transmission of 14.6%, a linewidth of 80 MHz, and an out-of-band extinction >35 dB. The…
We study the phase transition of a gas of Rb atoms to quantum degeneracy in the combined potential of a harmonically confining magnetic trap and the periodic potential of an optical lattice. For high optical lattice potentials we observe a…
The manipulation of cold atoms with optical fields is a very promising technique for a variety of applications ranging from laser cooling and trapping to coherent atom transport and matter wave interferometry. Optical fields have also been…
A frequency-stabilized light source emitting at 556 nm is realized by frequency-doubling a 1112-nm laser, which is phase-locked to a fiber-based optical frequency comb. The 1112-nm laser is either an ytterbium (Yb)-doped distributed…
We report on the fast production and weakly destructive detection of a Fermi gas with tunable interactions in a high finesse cavity. The cavity is used both with far off-resonant light to create a deep optical dipole trap, and with…
In this paper we present the realization of a compact, high-power laser system able to excite the Ytterbium clock transition at 578 nm. Starting from an external-cavity laser based on a quantum dot chip at 1156 nm with an intra-cavity…
We present the realization of a combined trapped-ion and optical cavity system, in which a single Yb^+ ion is confined by a micron-scale ion trap inside a 230 mum-long optical fiber cavity. We characterize the spatial ion-cavity coupling…
We demonstrate generation of linearly polarized pulses from a passively Q-switched Erbium-doped fiber laser. The cavity was designed using only polarization maintaining (PM) fibers and components, resulting in linearly polarized output beam…
All light has structure, but only recently it has become possible to construct highly controllable and precise potentials so that most laboratories can harness light for their specific applications. In this chapter, we review the emerging…
We demonstrate Faraday spectroscopy with high duty cycle and sampling rate using atoms confined to a blue-detuned optical trap. Our trap consists of a crossed pair of high-charge-number hollow laser beams, which forms a dark, box-like…