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Electromagnetically induced transparency with single atoms in a cavity

Nature volume 465, pages 755–758 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical nonlinearities offer unique possibilities for the control of light with light. A prominent example is electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), where the transmission of a probe beam through an optically dense medium is manipulated by means of a control beam1,2,3. Scaling such experiments into the quantum domain with one (or just a few) particles of light and matter will allow for the implementation of quantum computing protocols with atoms and photons4,5,6,7, or the realization of strongly interacting photon gases exhibiting quantum phase transitions of light8,9. Reaching these aims is challenging and requires an enhanced matter–light interaction, as provided by cavity quantum electrodynamics10,11,12. Here we demonstrate EIT with a single atom quasi-permanently trapped inside a high-finesse optical cavity. The atom acts as a quantum-optical transistor with the ability to coherently control13 the transmission of light through the cavity. We investigate the scaling of EIT when the atom number is increased one-by-one. The measured spectra are in excellent agreement with a theoretical model. Merging EIT with cavity quantum electrodynamics and single quanta of matter is likely to become the cornerstone for novel applications, such as dynamic control of the photon statistics of propagating light fields14 or the engineering of Fock state superpositions of flying light pulses15.

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Figure 1: Experimental protocol and cavity EIT.
Figure 2: Cavity EIT with a single atom.
Figure 3: Cavity EIT spectra for N = 2 to 5 atoms.
Figure 4: Measured transparency, contrast and linewidth of cavity EIT with N = 1 to 7 atoms.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. L. Moehring, H. P. Specht, C. Nölleke, A. Neuzner and C. Guhl for their contributions during the early stages of the experiment. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Research Unit 635) and the European Union (IST programmes SCALA and AQUTE). E.F. acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. C.J.V.-B. acknowledges support from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior and the Brazilian National Institute for Science and Technology of Quantum Information (INCT-IQ).

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Author notes

  1. Martin Mücke and Eden Figueroa: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany ,

    Martin Mücke, Eden Figueroa, Joerg Bochmann, Carolin Hahn, Karim Murr, Stephan Ritter, Celso J. Villas-Boas & Gerhard Rempe

  2. Departamento de Fisica, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, 13565-905 São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil,

    Celso J. Villas-Boas

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  1. Martin Mücke
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All authors contributed to the implementation and modelling of the experiment, the interpretation of the results and the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Eden Figueroa.

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Mücke, M., Figueroa, E., Bochmann, J. et al. Electromagnetically induced transparency with single atoms in a cavity. Nature 465, 755–758 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09093

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