@article {2216, title = {Coherent optical nano-tweezers for ultra-cold atoms}, year = {2018}, abstract = {

There has been a recent surge of interest and progress in creating subwavelength free-space optical potentials for ultra-cold atoms. A key open question is whether geometric potentials, which are repulsive and ubiquitous in the creation of subwavelength free-space potentials, forbid the creation of narrow traps with long lifetimes. Here, we show that it is possible to create such traps. We propose two schemes for realizing subwavelength traps and demonstrate their superiority over existing proposals. We analyze the lifetime of atoms in such traps and show that long-lived bound states are possible. This work opens a new frontier for the subwavelength control and manipulation of ultracold matter, with applications in quantum chemistry and quantum simulation.

}, url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.02487}, author = {P. Bienias and S. Subhankar and Y. Wang and T-C Tsui and F. Jendrzejewski and T. Tiecke and G. Juzeliunas and L. Jiang and S. L. Rolston and J. V. Porto and Alexey V. Gorshkov} } @article {2006, title = {Subwavelength-width optical tunnel junctions for ultracold atoms}, journal = {Physical Review A}, volume = {94}, year = {2016}, month = {2016/12/27}, pages = {063422}, abstract = {

We propose a method for creating far-field optical barrier potentials for ultracold atoms with widths that are narrower than the diffraction limit and can approach tens of nanometers. The reduced widths stem from the nonlinear atomic response to control fields that create spatially varying dark resonances. The subwavelength barrier is the result of the geometric scalar potential experienced by an atom prepared in such a spatially varying dark state. The performance of this technique, as well as its applications to the study of many-body physics and to the implementation of quantum-information protocols with ultracold atoms, are discussed, with a focus on the implementation of tunnel junctions.

}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063422}, url = {http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063422}, author = {Jendrzejewski, F. and Eckel, S. and Tiecke, T. G. and G. Juzeliunas and Campbell, G. K. and Jiang, Liang and Alexey V. Gorshkov} }