Lossless State Detection of Single Neutral Atoms

Abstract

We introduce lossless state detection of trapped neutral atoms based on cavity-enhanced fluorescence. In an experiment with a single 87-Rb atom, a hyperfine-state-detection fidelity of 99.4% is achieved in 85 microseconds. The quantum bit is interrogated many hundreds of times without loss of the atom while a result is obtained in every readout attempt. The fidelity proves robust against atomic frequency shifts induced by the trapping potential. Our scheme does not require strong coupling between the atom and cavity and can be generalized to other systems with an optically accessible quantum bit.

4 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• A Single-Atom Quantum Memory
• Cavity-based single atom preparation and high-fidelity hyperfine state readout
• Highly-efficient state-selective sub-microsecond photoionization detection of single atoms
• Projective measurement of a single nuclear spin qubit by using two-mode cavity QED
• Measuring the internal state of a single atom without energy exchange