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Cooperative coupling of ultracold atoms and surface plasmons

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 937–942 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Cooperative coupling between optical emitters and light fields is one of the outstanding goals in quantum technology. It is both fundamentally interesting for the extraordinary radiation properties of the participating emitters and has many potential applications in photonics. Although this goal has been achieved using high-finesse optical cavities, attention has turned to broadband, easy to build cavity-free approaches. Here we demonstrate cooperative coupling of ultracold atoms with surface plasmons propagating on a plane gold surface. While the atoms are moving towards the surface they are excited by an external laser pulse. The interaction between the excited atom fluorescence and surface plasmons is probed by detecting the photons emitted into the substrate when the plasmon excitations decay. A maximum Purcell factor of ηP = 4.9 is reached at an optimum distance of z = 250 nm from the surface. The coupling leads to the observation of a Fano-like resonance in the spectrum.

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Figure 1: Schematic drawing of the experimental situation.
Figure 2: Radiation properties of a rubidium atom at a gold surface.
Figure 3: Measured photon numbers.
Figure 4: Measured spectrum.

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Acknowledgements

C.Z. gratefully acknowledges financial support by the DFG. C.S. was supported by Carl-Zeiss Stiftung Baden-Württemberg. S.S. is indebted to the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung for the financial support of this research project by the Eliteprogramm for Postdocs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physikalisches Institut and Center for Collective Quantum Phenomena in LISA+, Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany

    Christian Stehle, Claus Zimmermann & Sebastian Slama

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  1. Christian Stehle
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  2. Claus Zimmermann
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C.Z. provided the laboratory and experimental facilities, C.S. made the measurements, and S.S. analysed the data and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Sebastian Slama.

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Stehle, C., Zimmermann, C. & Slama, S. Cooperative coupling of ultracold atoms and surface plasmons. Nature Phys 10, 937–942 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3129

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