Abstract
We present experimental observations of atom-light interactions within tens of nanometers (down to 11 nm) of a sapphire surface. Using photon counting we detect the fluorescence from of order one thousand Rb or Cs atoms, confined in a vapor with thickness much less than the optical excitation wavelength. The asymmetry in the spectral line shape provides a direct readout of the atom-surface potential. A numerical fit indicates a power law -C(α)/r(α) with α = 3.02 ± 0.06 confirming that the van der Waals interaction dominates over other effects. The extreme sensitivity of our photon-counting technique may allow the search for atom-surface bound states.
Highlights
Atomic vapors are continuing to find new applications in quantum technologies such as chip-scale atomic clocks [1], magnetometry [2,3], magnetoencephalography [4], magnetocardiography [5], an atom-based optical isolator [6], quantum memories [7], frequency filtering [8,9], and in the field of nanoplasmonics
A numerical fit indicates a power law −Cα=rα with α 1⁄4 3.02 Æ 0.06 confirming that the van der Waals interaction dominates over other effects
Many of the above applications use atoms in ground states or low-lying excited states, where the atom-surface (AS) interaction is relatively small as the induced dipole is only a few Debye
Summary
Atomic vapors are continuing to find new applications in quantum technologies such as chip-scale atomic clocks [1], magnetometry [2,3], magnetoencephalography [4], magnetocardiography [5], an atom-based optical isolator [6], quantum memories [7], frequency filtering [8,9], and in the field of nanoplasmonics (see Refs. [10,11] for reviews). (b),(d) The effect of the atom-surface interaction on an initially Lorentzian spectral line (black dashed curves) is to shift the peak position, and create a pronounced asymmetry between the red and blue wings (red curves).
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