TY - JOUR T1 - Coherent optical nano-tweezers for ultra-cold atoms Y1 - 2018 A1 - P. Bienias A1 - S. Subhankar A1 - Y. Wang A1 - T-C Tsui A1 - F. Jendrzejewski A1 - T. Tiecke A1 - G. Juzeliƫnas A1 - L. Jiang A1 - S. L. Rolston A1 - J. V. Porto A1 - Alexey V. Gorshkov AB -

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.

UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.02487 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Subwavelength-width optical tunnel junctions for ultracold atoms JF - Physical Review A Y1 - 2016 A1 - Jendrzejewski, F. A1 - Eckel, S. A1 - Tiecke, T. G. A1 - G. Juzeliƫnas A1 - Campbell, G. K. A1 - Jiang, Liang A1 - Alexey V. Gorshkov AB -

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.

VL - 94 U4 - 063422 UR - http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063422 CP - 6 U5 - 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063422 ER -