1212.0810 (G. Hétet et al.)

Faraday rotation of a tightly focussed beam from a single trapped atom    [PDF]

G. Hétet, L. Slodička, N. Röck, R. Blatt

Faraday rotation of a laser field induced by a single atom is demonstrated by tightly focussing a linearly polarized laser beam onto a laser-cooled ion held in a harmonic Paul trap. The polarization rotation signal is further used to measure the phase-shift associated with electromagnetically-induced-transparency and to demonstrate read-out of the internal state on the qubit transition with a detection fidelity of 98 $\pm$ 1%. These results have direct implications for single atom magnetometery and dispersive read-out of atomic superpositions.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0810