Zhanchun Zuo

Direct observation of Anderson localization of matter waves in a controlled disorder.

In 1958, Anderson predicted the localization of electronic wavefunctions in disordered crystals and the resulting absence of diffusion. It is now recognized that Anderson localization is ubiquitous in wave physics because it originates from the interference between multiple scattering paths. Experimentally, localization has been reported for light waves, microwaves, sound waves and electron gases. However, there has been no direct observation of exponential spatial localization of matter waves of any type. Here we observe exponential localization of a Bose–Einstein condensate released into a one-dimensional waveguide in the presence of a controlled disorder created by laser speckle. We operate in a regime of pure Anderson localization, that is, with weak disorder—such that localization results from many quantum reflections of low amplitude—and an atomic density low enough to render interactions negligible. We directly image the atomic density profiles as a function of time, and find that weak disorder can stop the expansion and lead to the formation of a stationary, exponentially localized wavefunction—a direct signature of Anderson localization. We extract the localization length by fitting the exponential wings of the profiles, and compare it to theoretical calculations. The power spectrum of the one-dimensional speckle potentials has a high spatial frequency cutoff, causing exponential localization to occur only when the de Broglie wavelengths of the atoms in the expanding condensate are greater than an effective mobility edge corresponding to that cutoff. In the opposite case, we find that the density profiles decay algebraically, as predicted in ref. 13. The method presented here can be extended to localization of atomic quantum gases in higher dimensions, and with controlled interactions.

Single atom Rydberg excitation in a small dipole trap

We have realized a single atom trap using a magneto-optical trap (MOT) with a high magnetic field gradient and a small optical dipole trap. Using this trap, we demonstrate the excitation to a highly excited Rydberg state (n=43) with a single Rubidium atom.

Transition from Autler–Townes splitting to electromagnetically induced transparency based on the dynamics of decaying dressed states

The threshold for the transition between Autler–Townes splitting (ATS) and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is studied through examining the dynamics of decaying dressed states, which are derived from the effective Hamiltonian. It is found that the threshold corresponds to the suppression of the Rabi oscillation of the populations by the relaxation as the coupling field becomes weak. Moreover, ATS and EIT belong to two different regimes, the former being in the non-perturbation regime, where there is coherent Rabi oscillation of the populations of the states coupled by the coupling field. By contrast, EIT is in the perturbation regime, and the transparency window in the EIT resonance can be explained as being due to the gain of the four-wave mixing process. Experiments are performed in cold rubidium atoms, where both the absorption and dispersion are measured, showing that EIT can be discriminated from ATS through Fourier transformation of the spectra. Compared to the statistical method proposed by Anisimov et al (2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 163604), our method is more direct and is deterministic.