Trapping and Manipulation of Laser-Cooled Metastable Argon Atoms at a Surface
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Trapping and Manipulation of Laser-Cooled Metastable Argon Atoms at a Surface Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades des Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.) an der Universität Konstanz Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Sektion Fachbereich Physik vorgelegt von Dominik Schneble Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 20. Februar 2002 Referenten: Prof. Dr. T. Pfau Priv.-Doz. Dr. C. Bechinger Prof. Dr. G. Ganteför Abstract This thesis discusses experiments on the all-optical trapping and manipulation of laser- cooled metastable argon atoms at a surface. A magneto-optical surface trap (MOST) has been realized and studied. This novel hybrid trap combines a magneto-optical trap at a metallic surface with an optical evanescent-wave atom mirror. It allows laser-cooling and trapping of atoms in con- tact with an evanescent light field that separates the atomic cloud from the surface by a fraction of an optical wavelength. Based on this work, the continuous loading of a planar matter waveguide has been demonstrated. Loading into the waveguide, which was formed by the optical potential of a red-detuned standing light wave above the surface, was achieved via evanescent- field optical pumping from the MOST in sub-mdistancefromthesurface. In subsequent experiments, several light-induced atom-optical elements have been demonstrated in the planar waveguide geometry, including a continuous atom source, a switchable channel guide, an atom detector and an optical surface lattice. The source, the channel and the detector have been combined to form the first, albeit simple, atom- optical integrated circuit. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 General Context ............................... 1 1.2 This Thesis .................................. 5 1.3 Outlook .................................... 6 1.4 Outline .................................... 7 2 Basic Issues 9 2.1 Theoretical and Experimental Concepts ................... 9 2.1.1 Light Forces in the Dressed-Atom Picture .............. 9 2.1.2 Laser Cooling and Trapping ..................... 15 2.1.3 Reflection of Atoms from an Evanescent Wave ........... 23 2.1.4 Generating Evanescent Waves with Surface Plasmons ....... 26 2.2 Experimental Apparatus ........................... 29 2.2.1 Argon ................................. 29 2.2.2 Beam Machine and Laser System .................. 32 2.2.3 The Surface .............................. 36 3 Surface-Assisted Detection of Ar£ 39 3.1 Introduction .................................. 39 3.2 Experimental Scheme ............................ 39 3.3 Characterization of the Detector ....................... 43 3.3.1 Focusing, Length Calibration and Spatial Resolution ....... 43 ½× ½× ¿ 3.3.2 Detection Efficiencies for the 5 and States .......... 45 3.3.3 Sensitivity to Magnetic Fields .................... 48 3.4 Application: 3D Time-of-Flight Measurements ............... 49 3.5 Conclusion .................................. 52 4 Magneto-Optical Surface Trap 53 4.1 Introduction .................................. 53 4.2 Configuration of the MOST ......................... 54 4.3 Simple Model for Properties of the MOST ................. 55 4.4 Experiment .................................. 60 4.4.1 Experimental Setup ......................... 61 i ii CONTENTS 4.4.2 Properties of the Atom Cloud far from the Surface ......... 62 4.4.3 Behavior of the Trap for Varying Magnetic-Field Zero Position .. 66 4.4.4 Evanescent-Wave Bichromatic Atom Mirror ............ 68 4.4.5 Combined MOT–Atom Mirror .................... 73 4.5 Conclusions .................................. 75 5 Continuous Loading and Manipulation of Atoms in a Surface Waveguide 77 5.1 Introduction .................................. 77 5.2 Basic Concepts ................................ 78 5.2.1 Overview ............................... 78 5.2.2 The Waveguide ............................ 80 5.2.3 Continuous Loading ......................... 82 5.2.4 Surface-Sensitive Detection. ..................... 84 5.3 Experiment .................................. 85 5.3.1 Experimental Setup ......................... 85 5.3.2 Continuous Loading ......................... 85 5.3.3 Integrated Atom Source and Switchable Channel Guide ..... 92 5.3.4 Integrated Atom Detector and Simple Integrated Circuit ..... 94 5.3.5 Optical Surface Lattice ........................ 95 5.4 Conclusions .................................. 98 A Dressed Atom in a Bichromatic Light Field 101 Bibliography 103 Zusammenfassung 119 Danksagung 121 List of Figures 1.1 Trapping and manipulation of metastable argon at a surface ....... 5 2.1 Dressed atom ................................. 12 2.2 Model of the 1D MOT ............................ 17 2.3 3D 6-beam MOT configuration ....................... 18 2.4 Sisyphus cooling ............................... 22 2.5 Evanescent-wave optical atom mirror .................... 24 2.6 Total potential of an evanescent-wave optical atom mirror ........ 26 2.7 Surface-plasmon evanescent-wave mirror ................. 27 2.8 Level scheme of argon ............................ 30 2.9 Clebsch-Gordan coefficients ......................... 32 2.10 Schematic of the beam machine. ...................... 33 2.11 View into the beam machine lab. ...................... 34 2.12 The laser system for experiments with metastable argon. ......... 35 2.13 The surface .................................. 36 2.14 Characterization of the surface-plasmon resonance ............ 37 2.15 Characterization of the straylight distribution above the surface ..... 38 3.1 The surface atom detector .......................... 40 3.2 Surface deexcitation mechanisms ...................... 41 3.3 Creating a test object for the atom detector ................ 44 3.4 Detection efficiency profile .......................... 46 3.5 Measurement of the electron yield ..................... 47 3.6 Switching the detector with a magnetic field ................ 48 3.7 Experimental 3D TOF spectrum for a cloud of laser-cooled atoms .... 51 4.1 General concept for the MOST ........................ 55 4.2 3D configuration of the MOST ........................ 56 4.3 Model for a MOT near a surface ....................... 57 4.4 Light field distribution at the mirror surface ................ 59 4.5 Experimental setup for the MOST ...................... 62 4.6 Fluorescence image of a trapped cloud ................... 63 4.7 Temperatures of the trapped cloud ..................... 65 iii iv LIST OF FIGURES 4.8 Method for shifting the position of the magnetic field zero ........ 66 4.9 Shifting the cloud toward the surface .................... 67 4.10 Properties of the trapped cloud for different heights ............ 69 4.11 Characterization of the bichromatic atom mirror .............. 72 4.12 Lifetime of the MOST ............................. 74 5.1 Experimental schematic and transitions for the waveguide experiments .79 5.2 The waveguide potential ........................... 81 5.3 Scheme and model for continuous loading ................. 83 5.4 Surface-sensitive detection .......................... 85 5.5 Experimental configuration for the waveguide ............... 86 5.6 Experimental setup for the waveguide ................... 87 5.7 TOF signal of the CW loaded waveguide .................. 88 5.8 Sequence for measuring the loading curve ................. 89 5.9 Loading curve of the waveguide ....................... 89 5.10 Parameter dependence of the loading process ............... 91 5.11 Integrated atom source and channel guide ................. 92 5.12 Propagation of atoms in the channel guide ................. 93 5.13 Integrated atom detector and atom-optical integrated circuit ....... 95 5.14 A quasi-1D optical surface lattice ...................... 96 5.15 Localization of atoms in the surface lattice ................. 97 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 General Context The development of laser cooling and trapping [1, 2, 3] and atom optics [4]overthe last two decades has stimulated and contributed to a wide range of fundamental and applied research including optical lattices as model systems for solid-state physics, ul- tracold collisions, nano lithography, atom interferometry, precision sensing and metrol- ogy, and quantum information processing [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. In particular, it has also paved the way to the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute, weakly interacting atomic gases [13,14,15]. Laser cooling and trapping exploits the mechanical effects of light on atoms which can be described in terms of spontaneous and dipole forces [16, 17, 18]. The spon- taneous force arises when an atom scatters photons from a laser beam. While the absorption of photons is directed, the momenta of spontaneously emitted photons av- erage to zero and so the atom experiences, averaged over many cycles, a nonzero momentum transfer from the beam. Since the emission is irreversible the resulting net force (also called radiation pressure) is dissipative. The dipole force, on the contrary, arises from the coherent interaction of an inhomogeneous laser field with the induced atomic dipole moment. It is conservative as no spontaneous emission is involved, and can be written as the gradient of an optical potential. These forces can be used to cool the motion of atoms and confine and manipulate them in traps. Radiation pressure on free atoms was observed as early as 1933 [19] yet remained without experimental rel- evance until after the advent of lasers in the 1960s. The idea of laser cooling, based on the high spectral intensity of lasers, was introduced in 1975 [20,21], and in the 1980s