Optical response of gas-phase atoms at less than λ/80 from a dielectric surface

2014/03/12 by K. A. Whittaker, J. Keaveney, I. G. Hughes +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.atom-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.112.253201

arxiv created 2014/03/12 · arxiv updated 2014/07/10

Abstract

We present experimental observations of atom-light interactions within tens of nanometers (down to 11~nm) of a sapphire surface. Using photon counting we detect the fluorescence from of order one thousand Rb or Cs atoms, confined in a vapor with thickness much less than the optical excitation wavelength. The asymmetry in the spectral lineshape provides a direct read-out of the atom-surface potential. A numerical fit indicates a power-law -C_α/r^α with α=3.02±0.06 confirming that the van der Waals interaction dominates over other effects. The extreme sensitivity of our photon-counting technique may allow the search for atom-surface bound states.

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