High-Precision Phase Control of an Optical Lattice with up to 50 dB Noise Suppression

Abstract

An optical lattice is a periodic light crystal constructed from the standing-wave interference patterns of laser beams. It can be used to store and manipulate quantum degenerate atoms and is an ideal platform for the quantum simulation of many-body physics. A principal feature is that optical lattices are flexible and possess a variety of multidimensional geometries with modifiable band-structure. An even richer landscape emerges when control functions can be applied to the lattice by modulating the position or amplitude with Floquet driving. However, the desire for realizing high-modulation bandwidths while preserving extreme lattice stability has been difficult to achieve. In this paper, we demonstrate an effective solution that consists of overlapping two counterpropagating lattice beams and controlling the phase and intensity of each with independent acousto-optic modulators. Our phase controller mixes sampled light from both lattice beams with a common optical reference. This dual heterodyne locking method allows exquisite determination of the lattice position, while also removing parasitic phase noise accrued as the beams travel along separate paths. We report up to 50dB suppression in lattice phase noise in the 0.1Hz - 1Hz band along with significant suppression spanning more than four decades of frequency. When integrated, the absolute phase diffusion of the lattice position is only 10Å over 10 s. This method permits precise, high-bandwidth modulation (above 50kHz) of the optical lattice intensity and phase. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach by executing intricate time-varying phase profiles for atom interferometry.

8 pages, 4 figures

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