Filtering single atoms from Rydberg blockaded mesoscopic ensembles

TL;DR

The paper introduces a method to selectively isolate single atoms from mesoscopic ensembles using stimulated adiabatic passage and engineered dissipation, enabling nearly deterministic single-atom sources for quantum applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel technique combining adiabatic passage and dissipation engineering to filter single atoms from unknown ensembles, improving control over atomic systems.

Findings

Achieves near-deterministic single-atom filtering.

Applicable to small ensembles in microtraps and lattices.

Utilizes Rydberg blockade and engineered dissipation.

Abstract

We propose an efficient method to filter out single atoms from trapped ensembles with unknown number of atoms. The method employs stimulated adiabatic passage to reversibly transfer a single atom to the Rydberg state which blocks subsequent Rydberg excitation of all the other atoms within the ensemble. This triggers the excitation of Rydberg blockaded atoms to short lived intermediate states and their subsequent decay to untrapped states. Using an auxiliary microwave field to carefully engineer the dissipation, we obtain a nearly deterministic single-atom source. Our method is applicable to small atomic ensembles in individual microtraps and in lattice arrays.