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Feasibility of detecting single atoms using photonic bandgap cavities

Benjamin Lev, Kartik Srinivasan, Paul Barclay, Oskar Painter, Hideo Mabuchi

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/0402093

Abstract

We propose an atom-cavity chip that combines laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms with magnetic microtraps and waveguides to deliver a cold atom to the mode of a fiber taper coupled photonic bandgap (PBG) cavity. The feasibility of this device for detecting single atoms is analyzed using both a semi-classical treatment and an unconditional master equation approach. Single-atom detection seems achievable in an initial experiment involving the non-deterministic delivery of weakly trapped atoms into the mode of the PBG cavity.

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