Ultracold atoms in nanostructured lattices

Atomes ultrafroids piégés dans des réseaux nanostructurés

Caroline Busquet (1) , Maxime Bellouvet (1) , Hugo Salvador Vásquez Bullón (1) , Jin-Yi Zhang (1) , Simon Bernon (1) , Philippe Bouyer (1)

1 LP2N - Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences

Ultra-cold atoms systems used as quantum simulators offer an alternative way to simulate many-body systems behaviour in condensed matter. Indeed, we can create artificial matter with optical lattices : the stationnary wave reproduces the potential wells in the crystalline structure. Moreover, the big advantage of using cold atoms is that the parameters of the simulated crystal can be well controlled so that we can understand the electrical and magnetism properties of the condensed matter such as conductivity, ferromagnetism ...The common approach for generating optical lattices is interfering two laser beams in one dimension. The lattice spacing is limited by the interfringe, which is half the wavelength. However, the more the lattice spacing decreases, the more the interaction energies increase [3].In the new ongoing project, we are going to produce subwavelength lattices by irradiating a nanostructure gold layer. The subwavelength potential is got thanks to the control of the interactions between the beams, the atomic cloud, and the nanostructured surface. This system will be able to study new interaction regimes with very high tunability (different lattice geometries, impurities...).

Domaines: Gaz Quantiques [cond-mat.quant-gas]

Caroline Busquet, Maxime Bellouvet, Hugo Salvador Vásquez Bullón, Jin-Yi Zhang, Simon Bernon, et al.. Ultracold atoms in nanostructured lattices. Journée de l'Ecole Doctorale EDSPI, Mar 2016, Talence, France. ⟨hal-01585089⟩