Daniel Gruss

Interaction-induced conducting–non-conducting transition of ultra-cold atoms in one-dimensional optical lattices

The study of time-dependent, many-body transport phenomena is increasingly within reach of ultra-cold atom experiments. We show that the introduction of spatially inhomogeneous interactions, e.g., generated by optically-controlled collisions, induce negative differential conductance in the transport of atoms in 1D optical lattices. Specifically, we simulate the dynamics of interacting fermionic atoms via a micro-canonical transport formalism within both mean-field and a higher-order approximation, as well as with time-dependent DMRG. For weakly repulsive interactions, a quasi steady-state atomic current develops that is similar to the situation occurring for electronic systems subject to an external voltage bias. At the mean-field level, we find that this atomic current is robust against the details of how the interaction is switched on. Further, a conducting-to-nonconducting transition exists when the interaction imbalance exceeds some threshold from both our approximate and time-dependent DMRG simulations. This transition is preceded by the atomic equivalent of negative differential conductivity observed in transport across solid-state structures.

pH/ion sensitive nanoprobes with optical tweezers

We present fluorescence-based pH/ion nanosensors, positioned and manipulated using holographic optical tweezers, with simultaneous fluorescence read-out, within a microfluidic device and within a biological cell.