Fano resonance in excitation spectroscopy and cooling of an optically trapped single atom

Abstract

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be used to cool an atom in a harmonic potential close to the ground state by addressing several vibrational modes simultaneously. Previous experimental efforts focus on trapped ions and neutral atoms in a standing wave trap. In this work, we demonstrate EIT cooling of an optically trapped single neutral atom, where the trap frequencies are an order of magnitude smaller than in an ion trap and a standing wave trap. We resolve the Fano resonance feature in fluorescence excitation spectra and the corresponding cooling profile in temperature measurements. A final temperature of around 6 µK is achieved with EIT cooling, a factor of 2 lower than the previous value obtained using polarization gradient cooling. Published by the American Physical Society 2024