1212.5295 (Andreas Reiserer et al.)

Ground-state cooling of a single atom at the center of an optical cavity    [PDF]

Andreas Reiserer, Christian Nölleke, Stephan Ritter, Gerhard Rempe

A single neutral atom is trapped in a three-dimensional optical lattice at the center of a high-finesse optical resonator. Using fluorescence imaging and a shiftable standing-wave trap, the atom is deterministically loaded into the maximum of the intracavity field where the atom-cavity coupling is strong. After 5ms of Raman sideband cooling, the three-dimensional motional ground state is populated with probability (89+/-2)%. Our system is the first to simultaneously achieve quantum control over all degrees of freedom of a single atom: its motion, its internal state and its coupling to light.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5295