Spontaneous opto-mechanical structures in cold atomic gases

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Tesio, E. and Robb, G.R.M. and Ackemann, T. and Gomes, P. and Arnold, A. and Firth, W.J. and Oppo, G.L. and Labeyrie, G. and Kaïser, R.; (2013) Spontaneous opto-mechanical structures in cold atomic gases. In: 2013 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe and International Quantum Electronics Conference, CLEO/Europe-IQEC 2013. IEEE. ISBN 9781479905935 (https://doi.org/10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2013.6801810)

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Abstract

We theoretically, numerically and experimentally investigate spontaneous transverse instabilities in cold atomic gases, arising from the action of dispersive light forces. Previous research focused on pattern-forming instabilities in hot gases where optical nonlinearities arise from the internal structure of the atoms and spatio-temporal structures are encoded in the populations and coherences of the medium. Dipole forces acting on the center-of-mass of laser-cooled atoms, being dependent on gradients of the optical intensity, are also nonlinear in nature: previous studies focused, for instance, on beam filamentation [1]. Here we investigate the situation where a positive feedback loop is present in the system leading to a pattern-forming instability. We stress that the resulting spatial structures are encoded also in the spatial density distribution, effectively leading to the self-assembly of an optical atomic lattice.

ORCID iDs

Tesio, E., Robb, G.R.M. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3004-5926, Ackemann, T. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2727-7395, Gomes, P., Arnold, A. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7084-6958, Firth, W.J., Oppo, G.L., Labeyrie, G. and Kaïser, R.;
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