• Open Access

Measuring Ion Oscillations at the Quantum Level with Fluorescence Light

G. Cerchiari, G. Araneda, L. Podhora, L. Slodička, Y. Colombe, and R. Blatt
Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 063603 – Published 4 August 2021
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Abstract

We demonstrate an optical method for detecting the mechanical oscillations of an atom with single-phonon sensitivity. The measurement signal results from the interference between the light scattered by a trapped atomic ion and that of its mirror image. We detect the oscillations of the atom in the Doppler cooling limit and reconstruct average trajectories in phase space. We demonstrate single-phonon sensitivity near the ground state of motion after electronically induced transparency cooling. These results could be applied for motion detection of other light scatterers of fundamental interest, such as trapped nanoparticles.

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  • Received 7 October 2020
  • Accepted 17 May 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.063603

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalQuantum Information, Science & Technology

Authors & Affiliations

G. Cerchiari1,*, G. Araneda1,2, L. Podhora3, L. Slodička3, Y. Colombe1, and R. Blatt1,4

  • 1Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
  • 3Department of Optics, Palacký University, 17. Listopadu 12, 77146 Olomouc, Czech Republic
  • 4Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Technikerstrasse 21a, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

  • *Corresponding author. giovanni.cerchiari@uibk.ac.at

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Issue

Vol. 127, Iss. 6 — 6 August 2021

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