Related papers: Optimizing the catching of atoms or molecules in t…
We investigate experimentally the energy distribution of a single rubidium atom trapped in a strongly focused dipole trap under various cooling regimes. Using two different methods to measure the mean energy of the atom, we show that the…
We demonstrate sub-Doppler cooling of calcium atoms using a two-photon transition from the ${^1}S_0$ ground state to the upper $4s5s~{^1}S_0$ state via the ${^1}P_1$ intermediate state. We achieve temperatures as low as $260~\mu\text{K}$ in…
We sympathetically cool a trapped 112Cd+ ion by directly Doppler-cooling a 114Cd+ ion in the same trap. This is the first demonstration of optically addressing a single trapped ion being sympathetically cooled by a different species ion.…
Ultracold molecular gases are promising as an avenue to rich many-body physics, quantum chemistry, quantum information, and precision measurements. This richness, which flows from the complex internal structure of molecules, makes the…
We propose a method to cool atoms on a ring by combining an atom diode -a laser valve for one-way atomic motion which induces robust internal state excitation- and a trap. We demonstrate numerically that the atom is efficiently slowed down…
We demonstrate the possibility of energy-selective removal of cold atoms from a tight optical trap by means of parametric excitation of the trap vibrational modes. Taking advantage of the anharmonicity of the trap potential, we selectively…
Single atoms trapped in tightly focused optical dipole traps provide an excellent experimental platform for quantum computing, precision measurement, and fundamental physics research. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a novel…
We theoretically analyze the cooling dynamics of an atom which is tightly trapped inside a high-finesse optical resonator. Cooling is achieved by suitably tailored scattering processes, in which the atomic dipole transition either scatters…
The energy-level structure of a single atom strongly coupled to the mode of a high-finesse optical cavity is investigated. The atom is stored in an intracavity dipole trap and cavity cooling is used to compensate for inevitable heating. Two…
Taming quantum dynamical processes is the key to novel applications of quantum physics, e.g. in quantum information science. The control of light-matter interactions at the single-atom and single-photon level can be achieved in cavity…
We experimentally investigate $\sigma^+$-$\sigma^-$ polarization gradient cooling~(PGC) of a single $^{87}$Rb atom in a tightly focused dipole trap and show that the cooling limit strongly depends on the polarization of the trapping field.…
We describe a simple experimental technique which allows us to store a small and deterministic number of neutral atoms in an optical dipole trap. The desired atom number is prepared in a magneto-optical trap overlapped with a single focused…
We show that it is possible to ``store'' quantum states of single-photon fields by mapping them onto {\it collective} meta-stable states of an optically dense, coherently driven medium inside an optical resonator. An adiabatic technique is…
We present a novel route to Bose-Einstein condensation devised for two-electron atoms, which do not admit practicable cooling techniques based upon narrow intercombination lines. A dipole trap for $^{40}$Ca atoms in the singlet ground state…
We present a mechanism for cooling atoms by a laser beam reflected from a single mirror. The cooling relies on the dipole force and thus in principle applies to arbitrary refractive particles including atoms, molecules, or dielectric…
Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. The workhorse technique in cold-atom physics is the magneto-optical trap (MOT), which combines laser cooling with a restoring force from radiation pressure. For a variety of…
Single atoms are interesting candidates for studying quantum optics and quantum information processing. Recently, trapping and manipulation of single atoms using tight optical dipole traps have generated considerable interest. Here we…
An efficient quantum storage is highly desired for quantum information processing. As indicated by certain applications, a universal quantum storage is required to have a storage efficiency above 50% to beat the no-cloning limit. Although…
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…
We have studied a general technique for laser cooling a cloud of polarized trapped atoms down to the Doppler temperature. A one-dimensional optical molasses using polarized light cools the axial motional degree of freedom of the atoms in…