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Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces
Quantum vacuum forces dictate the interaction between individual atoms and dielectric surfaces at nanoscale distances. For example, their large strengths typically overwhelm externally applied forces, which makes it challenging to controllably interface cold atoms with nearby nanophotonic systems. H...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Pub. Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104435/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25008119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5343 |
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author | Chang, D. E. Sinha, K. Taylor, J. M. Kimble, H. J. |
author_facet | Chang, D. E. Sinha, K. Taylor, J. M. Kimble, H. J. |
author_sort | Chang, D. E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Quantum vacuum forces dictate the interaction between individual atoms and dielectric surfaces at nanoscale distances. For example, their large strengths typically overwhelm externally applied forces, which makes it challenging to controllably interface cold atoms with nearby nanophotonic systems. Here we theoretically show that it is possible to tailor the vacuum forces themselves to provide strong trapping potentials. Our proposed trapping scheme takes advantage of the attractive ground-state potential and adiabatic dressing with an excited state whose potential is engineered to be resonantly enhanced and repulsive. This procedure yields a strong metastable trap, with the fraction of excited-state population scaling inversely with the quality factor of the resonance of the dielectric structure. We analyse realistic limitations to the trap lifetime and discuss possible applications that might emerge from the large trap depths and nanoscale confinement. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4104435 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Pub. Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41044352014-07-22 Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces Chang, D. E. Sinha, K. Taylor, J. M. Kimble, H. J. Nat Commun Article Quantum vacuum forces dictate the interaction between individual atoms and dielectric surfaces at nanoscale distances. For example, their large strengths typically overwhelm externally applied forces, which makes it challenging to controllably interface cold atoms with nearby nanophotonic systems. Here we theoretically show that it is possible to tailor the vacuum forces themselves to provide strong trapping potentials. Our proposed trapping scheme takes advantage of the attractive ground-state potential and adiabatic dressing with an excited state whose potential is engineered to be resonantly enhanced and repulsive. This procedure yields a strong metastable trap, with the fraction of excited-state population scaling inversely with the quality factor of the resonance of the dielectric structure. We analyse realistic limitations to the trap lifetime and discuss possible applications that might emerge from the large trap depths and nanoscale confinement. Nature Pub. Group 2014-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4104435/ /pubmed/25008119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5343 Text en Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Chang, D. E. Sinha, K. Taylor, J. M. Kimble, H. J. Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title | Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title_full | Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title_fullStr | Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title_full_unstemmed | Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title_short | Trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
title_sort | trapping atoms using nanoscale quantum vacuum forces |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104435/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25008119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5343 |
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