Measurement of the atom number distribution in an optical tweezer using single photon counting

Abstract

We demonstrate in this paper a method to reconstruct the atom number distribution of a cloud containing a few tens of cold atoms. The atoms are first loaded from a magneto-optical trap into a microscopic optical dipole trap and then released in a resonant light probe where they undergo a Brownian motion and scatter photons. We count the number of photon events detected on an image intensifier. Using the response of our detection system to a single atom as a calibration, we extract the atom number distribution when the trap is loaded with more than one atom. The atom number distribution is found to be compatible with a Poisson distribution.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Observation of suppression of light scattering induced by dipole-dipole interactions in a cold atomic ensemble
• Spin-resolved single-atom imaging of ${}^6$Li in free space
• Single atom detection in ultracold quantum gases: a review of current progress
• Deterministic single-atom excitation via adiabatic passage and Rydberg blockade
• Fast Preparation and Detection of a Rydberg Qubit using Atomic Ensembles
• Study of light-assisted collisions between a few cold atoms in a microscopic dipole trap
• Evaporative cooling of a small number of atoms in a single-beam microscopic dipole trap
• Single Atom Imaging with an sCMOS camera
• Sub-Poissonian atom number fluctuations using light-assisted collisions
• Spatial Light Modulators for the Manipulation of Individual Atoms
• In-trap fluorescence detection of atoms in a microscopic dipole trap
• A quantum register using collective excitations in a Bose-Einstein condensate