Related papers: A high resolution ion microscope for cold atoms
This thesis is divided into two parts, each of which supports constructing and using a lithium magneto-optical trap for cold collision studies: Part I: One outgoing channel of interest from cold collisions is the production of ion pairs. We…
We report an experimental demonstration of optical 2DCS in cold atoms. The experiment integrates a collinear 2DCS setup with a magneto-optical trap (MOT), in which cold rubidium (Rb) atoms are prepared at a temperature of about 200 $\mu$K…
One of the readily accessible observables in trapped cold-atom experiments is the column density, which is determined from optical depth (OD) obtained from absorption imaging and the absorption cross-section ($\sigma_{\rm abs}$). Here we…
We use two-dimensional transverse laser cooling to produce an ultracold beam of YbF molecules. Through experiments and numerical simulations, we study how the cooling is influenced by the polarization configuration, laser intensity, laser…
The exceptionally large polarisability of highly excited Rydberg atoms (six orders of magnitude higher than ground-state atoms) makes them of great interest in fields such as quantum optics, quantum computing, quantum simulation and…
Using a matter wave lens and a long time-of-flight, we cool an ensemble of Rb-87 atoms in two dimensions to an effective temperature of less than $50^{+50}_{-30}$~pK. A short pulse of red-detuned light generates an optical dipole force that…
Quantum reflection refers to a non-vanishing reflection probability in the absence of a classically turning point. Much attention has been paid to such reflections due to their fundamental, intriguing physics and potential practical…
We produce cold and dense clouds of atomic ions (Ca$^+$, Dy$^+$) by laser ablation of metal targets and cryogenic buffer gas cooling of the resulting plasma. We measure the temperature and density of the ion clouds using laser absorption…
Absorption imaging of ultracold atoms is the foundation for quantitative extraction of information from experiments with ultracold atoms. Due to the limited exposure time available in these systems, the signal-to-noise ratio is largest for…
In this paper we show that the sensitivity of absorption imaging of ultracold atoms can be significantly improved by imaging in a standing-wave configuration. We present simulations of single-atom absorption imaging both for a…
We address the technical challenges when performing quantum information experiments with ultracold Rydberg atoms in lattice geometries. We discuss the following key aspects: (i) The coherent manipulation of atomic ground states, (ii) the…
Optical absorption imaging has become a common technique for detecting the density distribution of ultracold atoms. The defocus effect generally produces artificial spatial structures in the obtained images, which confuses our understanding…
One exciting progress in recent cold atom experiments is the development of high resolution, in situ imaging techniques for atomic quantum gases [1-3]. These new powerful tools provide detailed information on the distribution of atoms in a…
We propose and analyze a new scheme to produce ultracold neutral plasmas deep in the strongly coupled regime. The method exploits the interaction blockade between cold atoms excited to high-lying Rydberg states and therefore does not…
We study the effects of high optical depth and density on the performance of a light-atom quantum interface. An in-situ imaging method, a dual-port polarization contrast technique, is presented. This technique is able to compensate for…
We demonstrate super-resolution optical sensing of the size of the wave packet of a single trapped ion. Our method extends the well known ground state depletion (GSD) technique to the coherent regime. Here, we use a hollow beam to strongly…
Polarized light microscopy, as a contrast-enhancing technique for optically anisotropic materials, is a method well suited for the investigation of a wide variety of effects in solid-state physics, as for example birefringence in crystals…
Feshbach resonances in ultra-cold atomic gases have led to some of the most important advances in atomic physics. They did not only enable ground breaking work in the BEC-BCS crossover regime [1], but are also widely used for the…
Utilizing single-photon photoassociation, we have achieved ultracold rubidium molecules with a high number density that provides a new efficient approach toward molecular quantum degeneracy. A new detection mechanism for ultracold molecule…
We propose to sympathetically slow and cool polar molecules in a cold, low-density beam using laser-cooled Rydberg atoms. The elastic collision cross sections between molecules and Rydberg atoms are large enough to efficiently thermalize…