Abstract

Atomic ensembles have gained a lot of interest in the last decade for their prospective use as quantum memories, in precision measurements and other applications in quantum information processing. The atomic part of the interface presented here is an ail-optically trapped atomic ensemble of ⁸⁷Rb at a temperature of 25μK. The ensemble consists of 10⁶ atoms and has an elongated shape with an aspect ratio of about 250:1. The resonant optical depth is around 50. The light part is an off-resonant polarized laser beam which dispersively probes the atomic state. The detection is a shot-noise limited polarization measurement of light pulses of a few μs and 3×10⁵ photons. More details are given in [1].

© 2009 IEEE