Realization of two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling for Bose-Einstein condensates

2015/11/24 by Zhan Wu, Long Zhang, Wei Sun +9 · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Bose–Einstein condensate #Boson #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Coupling (piping) #Degenerate energy levels #Fermion #Materials science #Optical lattice #Parameter space #Physics #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Realization (probability) #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin–orbit interaction #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #Superfluidity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topology (electrical circuits) #Ultracold atom #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.aaf6689

published as Science 354, 83-88 (2016) · 27 pages, 5 figures

arxiv created 2015/11/24 · openalex publication_date 2016/10/06 · arxiv updated 2016/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Cold atoms with laser-induced spin-orbit (SO) interactions provide a platform to explore quantum physics beyond natural conditions of solids. Here we propose and experimentally realize two-dimensional (2D) SO coupling and topological bands for a rubidium-87 degenerate gas through an optical Raman lattice, without phase-locking or fine-tuning of optical potentials. A controllable crossover between 2D and 1D SO couplings is studied, and the SO effects and nontrivial band topology are observed by measuring the atomic cloud distribution and spin texture in momentum space. Our realization of 2D SO coupling with advantages of small heating and topological stability opens a broad avenue in cold atoms to study exotic quantum phases, including topological superfluids.

Citations

• Chern Semimetal and the Quantized Anomalous Hall Effect inHgCr2Se4
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Realization of the Hofstadter Hamiltonian with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices
• Topological Insulators
• Discovery of a Weyl fermion semimetal and topological Fermi arcs
• Measuring the Chern number of Hofstadter bands with ultracold bosonic atoms
• Detecting Topological Phases in Cold Atoms
• Weyl Semimetal Phase in Noncentrosymmetric Transition-Metal Monophosphides
• Light-induced gauge fields for ultracold atoms
• Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires

Cited by

• Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice with Raman-assisted two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling
• Emergent Kagome lattice and non-Abelian lattice gauge field of biexcitons in t-MoTe₂
• Emergent Kitaev materials in synthetic Fermi-Hubbard bilayers
• Flat topological bands and eigenstate criticality in a quasiperiodic insulator
• Quantum Hall phase diagram of two-component Bose gases: Intercomponent entanglement and pseudopotentials
• Exposing the quantum geometry of spin-orbit-coupled Fermi superfluids
• Quench-induced dynamical topology under dynamical noise
• One- and two-dimensional gap solitons in spin-orbit-coupled systems with Zeeman splitting
• Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state to topological superfluidity transition in bilayer spin-orbit-coupled degenerate Fermi gases
• Multichannel molecular state and rectified short-range boundary condition for spin-orbit-coupled ultracold fermions near p-wave resonances

Related

• Degenerate quantum gases with spin–orbit coupling: a review
• Chiral Raman coupling for spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atomic gases
• Orbital Optical Raman Lattice
• Spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
• Carbon-dioxide-like Skyrmion controlled by spin-orbit coupling in atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates