A Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates advanced control and manipulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice, including loading, state transfer, band spectroscopy, and applications like a BEC accelerator and a large-momentum-transfer beamsplitter.

Contribution

It introduces new techniques for coherent control, state transfer, and spectroscopy of BECs in optical lattices, enabling novel quantum device applications.

Findings

High-efficiency loading into lattice ground state

Coherent population transfer between lattice states

Development of a BEC accelerator and large-momentum-transfer beamsplitter

Abstract

We have performed a number of experiments with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a one dimensional optical lattice. Making use of the small momentum spread of a BEC and standard atom optics techniques a high level of coherent control over an artificial solid state system is demonstrated. We are able to load the BEC into the lattice ground state with a very high efficiency by adiabatically turning on the optical lattice. We coherently transfer population between lattice states and observe their evolution. Methods are developed and used to perform band spectroscopy. We use these techniques to build a BEC accelerator and a novel, coherent, large-momentum-transfer beamsplitter.