Observation of the ${}^{87}$Rb $5S_{1/2}$ to $4D_{3/2}$ electric quadrupole transition at 516.6 nm mediated via an optical nanofibre

Abstract

Light guided by an optical nanofibre can have a very steep evanescent field gradient extending from the fibre surface. This can be exploited to drive electric quadrupole transitions in nearby quantum emitters. In this paper, we report on the observation of the $5S_{1/2}$ $\to$ $4D_{3/2}$ electric quadrupole transition at 516.6 nm (in vacuum) in laser-cooled ${}^{87}$Rb atoms using only a few $\mu$W of laser power propagating through an optical nanofibre embedded in the atom cloud. This work extends the range of applications for optical nanofibres in atomic physics to include more fundamental tests.

12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Storage of fiber-guided light in a nanofiber-trapped ensemble of cold atoms
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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Control of an atomic quadrupole transition in a phase-stable standing wave
• Perspective on new implementations of atomtronic circuits
• Machine learner optimization of optical nanofiber-based dipole traps for cold ${}^{87}$Rb atoms
• Quadrupole absorption rate and orbital angular momentum transfer for atoms in optical vortices
• Spin selection rule for {\it S} level transitions in atomic rubidium under paraxial and nonparaxial two-photon excitation
• Transfer of angular momentum of guided light to an atom with an electric quadrupole transition near an optical nanofiber
• Coupling between guided modes of two parallel nanofibers
• Nanotrappy: An open-source versatile package for cold-atom trapping close to nanostructures
• Rubidium atom spectral lineshapes in high intensity electric fields near an optical nanofibre
• Spectroscopy of the ${}^{85}$Rb 4$D_{3/2}$ state for hyperfine-structure determination
• Quadrupole absorption rate for atoms in circularly-polarized optical vortices
• Direction-dependent coupling between a nanofiber-guided light field and a two-level atom with an electric quadrupole transition
• Absorption of hybrid fibre modes by Cs atoms in quadrupole transitions
• Light-induced, fictitious magnetic trapping of cold alkali atoms using an optical tweezers-nanofiber hybrid platform
• Repulsive Casimir-Polder potentials of low-lying excited states of a multilevel alkali-metal atom near an optical nanofiber