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Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 123004 (2009) [4 pages]

Trapping and Manipulation of Isolated Atoms Using Nanoscale Plasmonic Structures

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D. E. Chang1, J. D. Thompson2, H. Park2,3, V. Vuletić4, A. S. Zibrov2, P. Zoller5, and M. D. Lukin2
1Center for the Physics of Information and Institute for Quantum Information, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
2Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
3Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
4Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
5Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Received 26 May 2009; published 17 September 2009

We propose and analyze a scheme to interface individual neutral atoms with nanoscale solid-state systems. The interface is enabled by optically trapping the atom via the strong near-field generated by a sharp metallic nanotip. We show that under realistic conditions, a neutral atom can be trapped with position uncertainties of just a few nanometers, and within tens of nanometers of other surfaces. Simultaneously, the guided surface plasmon modes of the nanotip allow the atom to be optically manipulated, or for fluorescence photons to be collected, with very high efficiency. Finally, we analyze the surface forces, heating and decoherence rates acting on the trapped atom.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.123004
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.123004
PACS:
37.10.Gh, 42.50.−p, 73.20.Mf, 78.67.Bf
 
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