Single atom trapping and control inside a nanosize photonic crystal cavity

Abstract

We analyze a possibility to trap, control and load a single atom inside a nanosize cavity formed in a photonic crystal. We consider a 1D nanobeam crystal having two nearly degenerate localized modes with mode maxima at the central air gap, forming a cavity with a mode volume <\lambda^{3}. For this system we found that an atom can be trapped by a mode detuned from an atomic transition and controled by the second resonant mode. We show that atomic motion can be cooled using cavity-enhanced rf Sisyphus cooling. We also discuss how an atom can be loaded inside the nanosize crystal air gap from short-wavelength optical tweezers.