Wang Yu-Zhu

Generations of dark hollow beams and their applications in laser cooling of atoms and all optical-type Bose-Einstein condensation

We report on a new experimental result to generate dark hollow beams by using a geometric optical method. We propose two new methods to produce focused and localized hollow laser beams by using π-phase plates. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we have studied the Sisyphus cooling of alkali atoms in pyramidal hollow beam gravito-optical traps. We discuss some potential applications of the dark hollow beams in atom optics and the preparation of an all optically-cooled and optically-trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Our research shows that an ultracold atomic sample with a temperature of ~2µK can be obtained in the pyramidal hollow beam dipole trap and an all optical-type BEC may be realized in a far blue-detuned, hollow beam trap.

Multiparticle Generalization of Remote State Preparation

We present a scheme for preparing remotely a three-particle pure entangled state via entanglement swapping, and then we directly generalize it to the multiparticle case. It is shown that by using N pairs of bipartite EPR states as the quantum channel, remote preparation of some specially chosen N-particle pure entangled states can be achieved faithfully with an N-particle orthonormal basis measurement and only N bits of classical information.

Laser Cooling of 87Rb to 1.5 μK in a Fountain Clock

We report an experiment on the adiabatic cooling of 87Rb atoms in an atomic fountain to a temperature as low as 1.5 μK, which is roughly twice the recoil temperature. The atomic fountain has the (1,1,1) optical geometry for cooling and launching of cold atoms. The atoms are first cooled in an optical molasses of 6 beams to 3.4 μK by polarization gradient geometry and then are adiabatically cooled by decreasing the intensity of laser from 1.8Is per beam to zero in 1 ms during the launching of cold atoms. We also study the dependences of atomic temperature on different laser parameters. The method we used is useful in any cold atom physics experiment.

Realization of an 85Rb Atomic Fountain

An atomic fountain with 85Rb cold atoms is reported. A series of time-of-flight signals is obtained, and the measured temperature of the cold atomic cloud is about 2.4 μK. It will have potential new applications in the precise measurement of fundamental constants and the proof of the Einsteins equivalence principle.

Probabilistic remote state preparation by W states

In this paper we consider a scheme for probabilistic remote state preparation of a general qubit by using W states. The scheme consists of the sender, Alice and two remote receivers Bob and Carol. Alice performs a projective measurement on her qubit in the basis spanned by the state she wants to prepare and its orthocomplement. This allows either Bob or Carol to reconstruct the state with finite success probability. It is shown that for some special ensembles of qubits, the remote state preparation scheme requires only two classical bits, unlike the case in the scheme of quantum teleportation where three classical bits are needed.

Narrowband Biphoton Generation with Four-Wave Mixing in a Far-Detuning Three-Level System

Non-classical paired photons are generated by a four-wave mixing process in a far-detuning three-level system with cold atoms. A violation of the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality of a factor of 310 is observed. This phenomenon shows that paired photons have a non-classical correlation. The experimental results are compared with theoretical results obtained using perturbation theory. The oscillation frequencies of the two-photon intensity correlation functions are in reasonable agreement with the effective Rabi frequencies of the coupling laser. However, we find that the dephasing rates (or decay rates) observed are far larger than the theoretical values.

Lifetime Measurement of Cold Atoms in an Integrating Sphere

We present an experimental measurement of the lifetime of the cold 87Rb atoms in an integrating sphere. The atoms are cooled by the diffuse light which is generated by the diffuse reflection of laser beams in the integrating sphere. Our result shows that the lifetime is primarily determined by the free fall of the cold 87Rb atoms, and its half-life can reach 40 ms, which is suitable for many experiments, especially for a cold atom clock.

Magneto optical trap for neutral mercury atoms

Due to its low sensitivity to blackbody radiation, neutral mercury is a good candidate for the most accurate optical lattice clock. Here we report the observation of cold mercury atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Because of the high vapor pressure at room temperature, the mercury source and the cold pump were cooled down to −40 °C and −70 °C, respectively, to keep the science chamber in an ultra-high vacuum of 6 × 10−9 Pa. Limited by the power of the UV cooling laser, the one beam folded MOT configuration was adopted, and 1.5×105 Hg-202 atoms were observed by fluorescence detection.

Improvement on Temperature Measurement of Cold Atoms in a Rubidium Fountain

The time-of-flight (TOF) method is one of the most common ways to measure the temperature of cold atoms. In the cold atomic fountain setup, the geometry of the probe beam will introduce the measurement errors to the spatial distribution of cold atomic cloud, which will lead to the measurement errors on atomic temperature. Using deconvolution, we recover the atomic cloud profile from the TOF signal. Then, we use the recovered signals other than the TOF signals to obtain a more accurate atomic temperature. This will be important in estimating the effects of cold atom collision shift and the shift due to transverse cavity phase distribution on an atomic fountain clock.

Ion trapping for quantum information processing

In this paper we have reviewed the recent progresses on the ion trapping for quantum information processing and quantum computation. We have first discussed the basic principle of quantum information theory and then focused on ion trapping for quantum information processing. Many variations, especially the techniques of ion chips, have been investigated since the original ion trap quantum computation scheme was proposed. Full two-dimensional control of multiple ions on an ion chip is promising for the realization of scalable ion trap quantum computation and the implementation of quantum networks.