Patterned Rydberg excitation and ionization with a spatial light modulator

R M W Van Bijnen,C Ravensbergen,D J Bakker,E J D Vredenbregt,G J Dijk,S J J M F Kokkelmans

doi:10.1088/1367-2630/17/2/023045

Abstract

We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magneto-optical trap, either to the continuum (ionization), or to a Rydberg state. To this end, excitation laser light is shaped into arbitrary intensity patterns with a spatial light modulator. These optical patterns are sensitive to aberrations of the phase of the light field, occurring while traversing the optical beamline. These aberrations are characterized and corrected without observing the actual light field in the vacuum chamber.

Highlights

We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magnetooptical trap, either to the continuum, or to a Rydberg state
The system dynamics is reduced to that of the internal state of the atoms, while their motion can be neglected. In this so-called frozen gas limit, Rydberg atoms can for instance be employed in quantum information processing [2,3,4,5], as quantum simulators for interacting spin systems [6,7,8,9,10], for studying resonant energy transfer [11,12,13,14], interfacing matter with quantum light [15,16,17,18], and even for emulating wireless networks [19]
In each of the aforementioned applications a precise control over the locations of the excitations would be greatly beneficial, or even a necessity. This control is typically envisioned by restricting the positions of the ground state atoms, e.g., by confining them to an optical lattice and enforcing regularly spaced geometries for the excitations to localise on

Summary

Introduction

We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magnetooptical trap, either to the continuum (ionisation), or to a Rydberg state. A HoloEye Pluto SLM modulates the phase of the 780 nm excitation laser, shaping the intensity pattern in the focal plane of a final lens with a focal length f = 90mm.

Results

Conclusion