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arXiv · 1104.5220

Laser-cooled atoms inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber

M. Bajcsy·S. Hofferberth·T. Peyronel·V. Balic·Q. Liang·A. S. Zibrov·V. Vuletic·M. D. Lukin
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Abstract

We describe the loading of laser-cooled rubidium atoms into a single-mode hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber. Inside the fiber, the atoms are confined by a far-detuned optical trap and probed by a weak resonant beam. We describe different loading methods and compare their trade-offs in terms of implementation complexity and atom-loading efficiency. The most efficient procedure results in loading of ~30,000 rubidium atoms, which creates a medium with optical depth ~180 inside the fiber. Compared to our earlier study this represents a six-fold increase in maximum achieved optical depth in this system.

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M. Bajcsy, S. Hofferberth, T. Peyronel, V. Balic, Q. Liang, A. S. Zibrov, V. Vuletic, M. D. Lukin. 2011-04-27. Laser-cooled atoms inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.83.063830

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