Subwavelength Localization of Atomic Excitation Using Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

We report an experiment in which an atomic excitation is localized to a spatial width that is a factor of 8 smaller than the wavelength of the incident light. The experiment utilizes the sensitivity of the dark state of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to the intensity of the coupling...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. X 2013-09, Vol.3 (3), p.031014, Article 031014
Main Authors: Miles, J. A., Simmons, Z. J., Yavuz, D. D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic excitations
Clouds
Color
Coupling
Dipoles
Experiments
Ground state
Incident light
Laser beams
Lasers
Light
Light diffraction
Localization
Nodes (standing waves)
Population
Population control
Rubidium
Spatial resolution
Standing waves
Wave diffraction
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Summary:We report an experiment in which an atomic excitation is localized to a spatial width that is a factor of 8 smaller than the wavelength of the incident light. The experiment utilizes the sensitivity of the dark state of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to the intensity of the coupling laser beam. A standing-wave coupling laser with a sinusoidally varying intensity yields tightly confined Raman excitations during the EIT process. The excitations, located near the nodes of the intensity profile, have a width of 100 nm. The experiment is performed using ultracold Rb87 atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap, and atomic localization is achieved with EIT pulses that are approximately 100 ns long. To probe subwavelength atom localization, we have developed a technique that can measure the width of the atomic excitations with nanometer spatial resolution.
ISSN:2160-3308
2160-3308
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevX.3.031014