Bloch oscillations of atoms in an optical multiphoton potential

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates Bloch oscillations of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a novel optical lattice with sub-wavelength periodicity, revealing strong atom localization and potential for exploring new quantum phases and quantum computing applications.

Contribution

It reports the first observation of Bloch oscillations in an optical lattice with sub-wavelength periodicity created via multiphoton Raman transitions.

Findings

Observation of Bloch oscillations at sub-wavelength scale

Strong atom localization indicated by effective mass measurements

Potential for discovering new quantum phases and quantum computing applications

Abstract

We report on experiments studying transport properties of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice of spatial period $\lambda/2n$, where $n$ is an integer, realized with the dispersion of multiphoton Raman transitions. We observe Bloch oscillations, as a clear effect of quantum transport, in the sub-wavelength scale periodicity lattice. The unusually strong localisation of atoms is evident from the measured effective mass. Future prospects of the novel lattice structures are expected in the search for new quantum phases in tailored lattice structures up to quantum computing in optical nanopotentials.