Strong Purcell effect on a neutral atom trapped in an open fiber cavity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a significant Purcell effect on a neutral atom in a fiber cavity, achieving high emission efficiency and photon antibunching, which advances fiber-based quantum interfaces.

Contribution

It reports the first strong Purcell enhancement of a neutral atom in an open fiber cavity with high emission into the cavity mode.

Findings

Sixfold Purcell broadening observed

Up to 90% of fluorescence emitted into cavity mode

Confirmed sub-Poissonian photon statistics

Abstract

We observe a sixfold Purcell broadening of the D$_2$ line of an optically trapped $^{87}\text{Rb}$ atom strongly coupled to a fiber cavity. Under external illumination by a near-resonant laser, up to $90\%$ of the atom's fluorescence is emitted into the resonant cavity mode. The sub-Poissonian statistics of the cavity output and the Purcell enhancement of the atomic decay rate are confirmed by the observation of a strongly narrowed antibunching dip in the photon autocorrelation function. The photon leakage through the higher-transmission mirror of the single-sided resonator is the dominant contribution to the field decay ($\kappa\!\approx\!2\pi\!\times\!50\,\text{MHz}$), thus offering a high-bandwidth, fiber-coupled channel for photonic interfaces such as quantum memories and single-photon sources.