Nonlinear photon-atom coupling with 4Pi microscopy

Implementing nonlinear interactions between single photons and single atoms is at the forefront of optical physics. Motivated by the prospects of deterministic all-optical quantum logic, many efforts are currently underway to find suitable experimental techniques. Focusing the incident photons onto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2017-10, Vol.8 (1), p.1200-5, Article 1200
Main Authors: Chin, Yue-Sum, Steiner, Matthias, Kurtsiefer, Christian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/400/482
639/766/36/1121
639/766/36/1125
Atoms & subatomic particles
Coupling
Diffraction
Humanities and Social Sciences
Image resolution
Microscopy
multidisciplinary
Nonlinear optics
Optics
Photons
Physics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:Implementing nonlinear interactions between single photons and single atoms is at the forefront of optical physics. Motivated by the prospects of deterministic all-optical quantum logic, many efforts are currently underway to find suitable experimental techniques. Focusing the incident photons onto the atom with a lens yielded promising results, but is limited by diffraction to moderate interaction strengths. However, techniques to exceed the diffraction limit are known from high-resolution imaging. Here we adapt a super-resolution imaging technique, 4Pi microscopy, to efficiently couple light to a single atom. We observe 36.6(3)% extinction of the incident field, and a modified photon statistics of the transmitted field–indicating nonlinear interaction at the single-photon level. Our results pave the way to few-photon nonlinear optics with individual atoms in free space. Strong atom-photon coupling has applications in deterministic quantum logic, but is difficult to achieve in free-space. Here, Chin et al. use 4Pi microscopy to increase the coupling between light and a single atom, demonstrating nonlinear single-photon interactions.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-017-01495-3