Taking a peek at Bloch oscillations

29 November 2016

Photo: AG Hemmerich

Bloch oscillations are a paradigm of coherent wave dynamics in periodic potentials. While in electronic lattice gases Bloch oscillations are covered by incoherent scattering, neutral atoms confined in an inherently defect-free optical lattice have proven nearly ideal to study this quantum phenomenon and to use it as a precision force sensor, for example for determination of the gravitational acceleration. The conventional method to map out the Bloch frequency in an optical lattice requires many successive destructive position measurements of the oscillating atomic wave packet, each of which requires the production of a new atomic sample. In a recent work we have demonstrated in-situ observation of Bloch oscillations by enclosing the atoms in a high finesse optical cavity. This far more efficient data acquisition method should notably increase the precision of Bloch oscillation based force sensors. Our work has now been highlighted in a perspective article in the New Journal of Physics.

See the article by Oliver Morsch in New J. Phys. 18, 111005 (2016).

New J. Phys. 18 111005

https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.08386

Phys. Rev. A 96, 063615