Related papers: Rydberg-induced optical nonlinearities from a cold…
We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magneto-optical trap, either to the continuum (ionisation), or to a Rydberg state. To this end, excitation laser light is shaped into arbitrary…
Black-body radiation, omnipresent at room temperature, couples nearby Rydberg states. The resulting state mixture features strong dipolar interactions, which may induce dephasing in a Rydberg many-body system. Here we report on a single…
We explore a single-photon approach to Rydberg state excitation and Rydberg blockade. Using detailed theoretical models, we show the feasibility of direct excitation, predict the effect of background electric fields, and calculate the…
The long-range interaction between Rydberg-excited atoms endows a medium with large optical nonlinearity. Here, we demonstrate an optical switch to operate on a single photon from an entangled photon pair under a Rydberg electromagnetically…
We experimentally study the effects of the anisotropic Rydberg-interaction on $D$-state Rydberg polaritons slowly propagating through a cold atomic sample. In addition to the few-photon nonlinearity known from similar experiments with…
Realizing single light bullets and vortices that are stable in high dimensions is a long-standing goal in the study of nonlinear optical physics. On the other hand, the storage and retrieval of such stable high dimensional optical pulses…
New experimental quantum simulation platforms have recently been implemented with divalent atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays with promising performance. The second valence electron also brings new propects through the so-called…
Resonant laser excitation of multiple Rydberg atoms are prohibited, leading to Rydberg blockade, when the long-range van der Waals interactions are stronger than the laser-atom coupling. Rydberg blockade can be violated, i.e. simultaneous…
We report the experimental observation of a cross-Kerr nonlinearity in a free-space medium based on resonantly-excited, interacting Rydberg atoms and electromagnetically induced transparency. The nonlinearity is used to implement…
Recent experiments have realized an all-optical photon transistor using a cold atomic gas. This approach relies on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in conjunction with the strong interaction among atoms excited to high-lying…
Rydberg tweezer arrays provide a versatile platform to explore quantum magnets with dipolar XY or van-der-Waals Ising ZZ interactions. Here, we propose a scheme combining dipolar and van-der-Waals interactions between two Rydberg states,…
Here we present a microscopic model that describes the Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) phenomenon in the multiple scattering regime. We consider an ensemble of cold three-level atoms, in a $\Lambda$ configuration, scattering…
Competing short- and long-range interactions represent distinguished ingredients for the formation of complex quantum many-body phases. Their study is hard to realize with conventional quantum simulators. In this regard, Rydberg atoms…
Collective off resonant scattering of coherent light by a cold gas induces long-range interactions via interference of light scattered by different particles. In a 1D configuration these interactions grow particularly strong for particles…
The non-linear and non-local effects in atomic Rydberg media under electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) make it a versatile platform for fundamental studies and applications in quantum information. In this paper, we study the…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking and formation of self-organized structures in nonlinear systems are intriguing and important phenomena in nature. Advancing such research to new nonlinear optical regimes is of much interest for both…
Previously, we had proposed the technique of light shift imbalance induced blockade which leads to a condition where a collection of non-interacting atoms under laser excitation remains combined to a superposition of the ground and the…
We propose a new all-optical method to image individual atoms within dense atomic gases. The scheme exploits interaction induced shifts on highly polarizable excited states, which can be spatially resolved via an electromagnetically induced…
Quantum optics based on highly excited atoms, also known as Rydberg atoms, has cemented itself as a powerful platform for the manipulation of light at the few-photon level. The Rydberg blockade, resulting from the strong interaction between…
Rydberg-mediated quantum optics is a useful route toward deterministic quantum information processing based on single photons and quantum networks, but is bottlenecked by the fast motional dephasing of Rydberg atoms. Here, we propose and…