Related papers: Light self-trapping in a large cloud of cold atoms
Cold atomic clouds constitute highly resonant nonlinear optical media, whose refractive index can be easily tuned via the light frequency. When subjected to a retro-reflected laser beam and under appropriate conditions, the cloud undergoes…
We experimentally demonstrate optical dipole trapping of a cloud of cold atoms by means of a dynamically coupled mode of a high-finesse cavity. We show that the trap requires a collective action of the atoms, i.e. a single atom would not be…
We report on light-shift tomography of a cloud of 87 Rb atoms in a far-detuned optical-dipole trap at 1565 nm. Our method is based on standard absorption imaging, but takes advantage of the strong light-shift of the excited state of the…
A single atom strongly coupled to a cavity mode is stored by three-dimensional confinement in blue-detuned cavity modes of different longitudinal and transverse order. The vanishing light intensity at the trap center reduces the light shift…
Precise control of atom-light interactions is vital to many quantum information protocols. In particular, atomic systems can be used to slow and store light to form a quantum memory. Optical storage can be achieved via stopped light, where…
We report on the study of the noise properties of laser light propagating through a cold 87Rb atomic sample held in a magneto-optical trap. The laser is tuned around the Fg = 2 \rightarrow Fe = 1, 2 D1 transitions of 87Rb. We observe…
We show that an azimuthally-periodically-modulated bright ring "necklace" beam can self-trap in self-focusing Kerr media and can exhibit stable propagation for very large distances. These are the first bright (2+1) D beams to exhibit stable…
We describe the implementation of a system for studying light-matter interactions using an ensemble of $10^6$ cold rubidium 87 atoms, trapped in a single-beam optical dipole trap. In this configuration the elongated shape of the atomic…
We demonstrate trapping of a single 85Rb atom at a distance of 200 nm from the surface of a whispering-gallery-mode bottle microresonator. The atom is trapped in an optical potential, which is created by retroreflecting a red-detuned…
We present an optical setup with focus-tunable lenses to dynamically control the waist and focus position of a laser beam, in which we transport a trapped ultracold cloud of 87-Rb over a distance of 28 cm. The scheme allows us to shift the…
We demonstrate that a cold, dense sample of 87Rb atoms can exhibit a micron-scale lensing effect, much like that associated with a macroscopically-sized lens. The experiment is carried out in the fashion of traditional z-scan measurements…
We demonstrate the in situ detection of cold 87 Rb atoms near a dielectric surface using the absorption of a weak, resonant evanescent wave. We have used this technique in time of flight experiments determining the density of atoms falling…
We report on highly effective trapping of cold atoms by a new method for a stable single optical trap in the near-optical resonant regime. An optical trap with the near-optical resonance condition consists of not only the dipole but also…
In this paper, we use steady-state measurements to obtain evidence of radiation trapping in an optically thick a cloud of cold rubidium atoms. We investigate the fluorescence properties of our sample, pumped on opened transitions. The…
Arrays of optical tweezers form the backbone of neutral atoms analog and digital quantum processors. However, the inter-trap distance remains generally much larger than the size of the tweezers to avoid interference-induced trap…
We experimentally and numerically study the temporal dynamics of light scattered by large clouds of cold atoms after the exciting laser is switched off in the low intensity (linear optics) regime. Radiation trapping due to multiple…
We describe a simple experimental technique which allows to store a single Rubidium 87 atom in an optical dipole trap. Due to light-induced two-body collisions during the loading stage of the trap the maximum number of captured atoms is…
The optical properties of randomly positioned, resonant scatterers is a fundamentally difficult problem to address across a wide range of densities and geometries. We investigate it experimentally using a dense cloud of rubidium atoms…
The optical properties of a fixed atom are well-known and investigated. For example, the extraordinarily large cross section of a single atom as seen by a resonant photon is essential for quantum optical applications. Mechanical effects…
We consider the cold bosonic ensemble trapped by a helical interference pattern in the optical \textit{loop} scheme. This rotating helical potential is produced by the two slightly detuned counter propagating Laguerre-Gaussian laser beams…