Measuring ion oscillations at the quantum level with fluorescence light

Abstract

We demonstrate an optical method for detecting the mechanical oscillations of an atom with single-phonon sensitivity. The measurement signal results from the interference between the light scattered by a single trapped atomic ion and that of its mirror image. The motion of the atom modulates the interference path length and hence the photon detection rate. We detect the oscillations of the atom in the Doppler cooling limit and reconstruct average trajectories in phase space. We demonstrate single-phonon sensitivity near the ground state of motion after EIT cooling. These results could be applied for motion detection of other light scatterers of fundamental interest, such as trapped nanoparticles.

arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Position measurement of a levitated nanoparticle via interference with its mirror image
• Micromotion minimization using Ramsey interferometry
• Back action suppression for levitated dipolar scatterers
• Motion analysis of a trapped ion chain by single photon self-interference
• Position measurement of a dipolar scatterer via self-homodyne detection
• Controlling the spontaneous emission of trapped ions