Collecting more than half the fluorescence photons from a single ion

R. Maiwald (1, 2) , A. Golla (1, 2) , Martin Fischer (1, 2) , Marianne Bader (1, 2) , Simon Heugel (1, 2) , Benoît Chalopin (1, 3) , Markus Sondermann (1, 2) , Gerd Leuchs (1, 2)

1 Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
2 IOP - Institute of Optics
3 Femto (LCAR)

We demonstrate the trapping of a single ion in the focus of a deep parabolic mirror that covers 81% of the solid angle surrounding the ion. Accounting for the reflectivity of the mirror we infer a photon collection efficiency of 54.8% for our setup. The underlying experimentally detected maximum fluorescence rate is 1.91×106 s−1 from a single 174Yb+ ion, mainly limited by the quantum efficiency of our photon detector. Besides the high collection efficiency, the integration of an ion trap into a parabolic mirror is a key ingredient for efficient coupling of light to a single ion in free space.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

R. Maiwald, A. Golla, Martin Fischer, Marianne Bader, Simon Heugel, et al.. Collecting more than half the fluorescence photons from a single ion. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2012, 86 (4), 043431 [5 p.]. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.86.043431⟩. ⟨hal-00924045⟩