Atom photon interfaces using fabricated spherical mirrors

Abstract

In this thesis, we report a process for fabricating high quality, defect-free spherical mirror templates suitable for developing high finesse optical Fabry-Perot resonators. The process utilizes the controlled re flow of borosilicate glass and differential pressure to produce mirrors with 0.3 nano meter surface roughness. The dimensions of the mirrors are in the 0.5-5 mm range making them suitable candidates for integration with on-chip neutral atom and ion experiments where enhanced interaction between atoms and photons are required. Moreover the mirror curvature, dimension and placement is readily controlled and the process can easily provide an array of such mirrors. The mirror formation process is modeled to predict the dimensions for particular fabrication parameters. We show that cavities constructed with these mirror substrates are well suited to quantum information applications such as single photon sources and atom-photon entanglement.

To demonstrate the versatility of the fabricated mirrors, we conduct an experiment to demonstrate for the first time the usage of in-vacuum spherical mirrors to create a dipole trap for single rubidium atoms and detect the atoms with high efficiency. The mirror serves the dual purpose of focusing the dipole trap as well as collection of the atomic fluorescence for detection.