Nanotrappy: An open-source versatile package for cold-atom trapping close to nanostructures

TL;DR

Nanotrappy is an open-source Python package that calculates optical trapping potentials for neutral atoms near nanostructures, aiding the design and analysis of atom trapping schemes in quantum research.

Contribution

The paper introduces a versatile, open-source computational tool for designing and characterizing atom traps near nanostructures, enhancing research capabilities in quantum optics.

Findings

Successfully computed trapping potentials for various nanostructures

Demonstrated the package's versatility across different trap configurations

Facilitated systematic design and analysis of atom traps near nanostructures

Abstract

Trapping cold neutral atoms in close proximity to nanostructures has raised a large interest in recent years, pushing the frontiers of cavity-QED and boosting the emergence of the waveguide-QED field of research. The design of efficient dipole trapping schemes in evanescent fields is a crucial requirement and a difficult task. Here we present an open-source Python package for calculating optical trapping potentials for neutral atoms, especially in the vicinity of nanostructures. Given field distributions and for a variety of trap configurations, nanotrappy computes the three-dimensional trapping potentials as well as the trap properties, ranging from trap positions to trap frequencies and state-dependent light shifts. We demonstrate the versatility for various seminal structures in the field, e.g., optical nanofiber, alligator slow-mode photonic-crystal waveguide and microtoroid. This versatile package facilitates the systematic design of structures and provides a full characterization of trapping potentials with applications to coherent manipulation of atoms and quantum information science.