Microwave-stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a Bose-Einstein condensate on an atom chip

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a robust and power-efficient microwave-induced STIRAP process in a Bose-Einstein condensate on an atom chip, with optimized transfer efficiency considering losses and collisions.

Contribution

First implementation of microwave STIRAP in a BEC on an atom chip, including a model accounting for losses and nonlinear effects to optimize transfer efficiency.

Findings

Achieved efficient state transfer in BEC using microwave STIRAP.

Optimal transfer occurs at specific non-zero detunings.

Experimental results align with nonlinear Bloch equations model.

Abstract

We report the achievement of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in the microwave frequency range between internal states of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) magnetically trapped in the vicinity of an atom chip. The STIRAP protocol used in this experiment is robust to external perturbations as it is an adiabatic transfer, and power-efficient as it involves only resonant (or quasi-resonant) processes. Taking into account the effect of losses and collisions in a non-linear Bloch equations model, we show that the maximum transfer efficiency is obtained for non-zero values of the one- and two-photon detunings, which is confirmed quantitatively by our experimental measurements.