High-density mesoscopic atom clouds in a holographic atom trap

Abstract

We demonstrate the production of micron-sized high-density atom clouds of interest for mesoscopic quantum information processing. We evaporate atoms from $60\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$, $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{14}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{atoms}∕{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}$ samples contained in a highly anisotropic optical lattice formed by interfering diffracted beams from a holographic phase plate. After evaporating to $1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ by lowering the confining potential, in less than a second the atom density reduces to $8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{13}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ at a phase space density approaching unity. Adiabatic recompression of the atoms then increases the density to levels in excess of $1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{15}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. The resulting clouds are typically $8\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ in the longest dimension. Such samples are small enough to enable mesoscopic quantum manipulation using the Rydberg blockade and have the high densities required to investigate collision phenomena.