Optomechanical self-structuring in a cold atomic gas

Labeyrie, G. and Tesio, Enrico and Monteiro Gomes, Pedro and Oppo, Gian-Luca and Firth, William and Robb, Gordon and Arnold, Aidan and Kaiser, Robin and Ackemann, Thorsten (2014) Optomechanical self-structuring in a cold atomic gas. Nature Photonics, 8 (4). pp. 321-325. ISSN 1749-4885

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    Abstract

    The rapidly developing field of optomechanics aims at the com- bined control of optical and mechanical modes1–3. In cold atoms, the spontaneous emergence of spatial structures due to opto- mechanical back-action has been observed in one dimension in optical cavities3–8 or highly anisotropic samples9. Extensions to higher dimensions that aim to exploit multimode configurations have been suggested theoretically10–16. Here, we describe a simple experiment with many spatial degrees of freedom, in which two continuous symmetries—rotation and translation in the plane orthogonal to a pump beam axis—are spontaneously broken. We observe the simultaneous long- range spatial structuring (with hexagonal symmetry) of the density of a cold atomic cloud and of the pump optical field, with adjustable length scale. Being based on coherent phenom- ena (diffraction and the dipole force), this scheme can poten- tially be extended to quantum degenerate gases.

    ORCID iDs

    Labeyrie, G., Tesio, Enrico, Monteiro Gomes, Pedro ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8417-1231, Oppo, Gian-Luca ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5376-4309, Firth, William, Robb, Gordon ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3004-5926, Arnold, Aidan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7084-6958, Kaiser, Robin and Ackemann, Thorsten ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2727-7395;
    • Item type:Article
      ID code:47879
      Dates:
      Date
      Event
      1 April 2014
      Published
      23 March 2014
      Published Online
      12 February 2014
      Accepted
      Keywords:optomechanics, optical cavities, quantum degenerate gases, Optics. Light, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
      Subjects:Science > Physics > Optics. Light
      Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
      Depositing user: Pure Administrator
      Date deposited:07 May 2014 12:13
      Last modified:09 May 2021 00:29
      Related URLs:
      URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/47879
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