We recently demonstrated a steady-state Bose-Einstein condensate of strontium atoms. We could turn this into a perpetual atom laser if an efficient outcoupling mechanism is found. Here we show a coherent three-photon excitation of the clock transition in a strontium BEC with contrast of over 50%. We follow it up with a demonstration of three-photon STIRAP-like transfer. In the future, we could use this process to coherently outcouple the atoms from a trap operating at tune-out wavelength.

Ultracold polar molecules (UPMs) are emerging as a novel and powerful platform for fundamental applications in quantum science. Here, we report characterization of the coherence between nuclear spin levels of ultracold ground-state sodium-rubidium molecules loaded into a 3D optical lattice with a nearly photon scattering limited trapping lifetime of 9(1) seconds. After identifying and compensating the main sources of decoherence, we achieve a maximum nuclear spin coherence time of T_{2}^{*}=3.3(6)  s with two-photon Ramsey spectroscopy. Furthermore, based on the understanding of the main factor limiting the coherence of the two-photon Rabi transition, we obtain a Rabi line shape with linewidth below 0.8 Hz. The simultaneous realization of long lifetime and coherence time, and ultrahigh spectroscopic resolution in our system unveils the great potentials of Ultracold polar molecules in quantum simulation, computation, and metrology.

The 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics will take place from May 30 – June 3, 2022 in Orlando, Fl, USA. Virtual Presenter Help Desk

We report the investigation on dipolar collisions in rotational state mixtures of ultracold bosonic $^{23}$Na$^{87}$Rb molecules. The large resonant dipole-dipole interaction between molecules in rotational states of opposite parities brings about significant modifications to their collisions, even when an electric field is not present. In this work, this effect is revealed by measuring the dramatically enhanced two-body loss rate constants in the mixtures. In addition, the dipolar interaction strength can be tuned by preparing the NaRb mixture in different rotational levels with microwave spectroscopy. When the rotational level combination is not of the lowest energy, contributions from hyperfine changing collisions are also observed. Our measured loss rate constants are in good agreement with a quantum close-coupling calculation which we also present in full detail.

Starting from an ultracold sample of ground-state 23Na87Rb molecules, we investigate the lowest ro-vibrational level of the b 3Π state with high resolution laser spectroscopy. This electronic spin-forbidden X 1Σ+ ↔ b 3Π transition features a nearly diagonal Franck–Condon factor and has been proposed useful for probing and manipulating the ultracold molecular gas. We measure the transition strength directly by probing the ac Stark shift induced by near resonance light and determine the total excited-state spontaneous emission rate by observing the loss of molecules. From the extracted branching ratio and the theoretical modeling, we find that the leakage to the continuum of the a 3Σ+ state plays the dominant role in the total transition linewidth. Based on these results, we show that it is feasible to create optical trapping potentials for maximizing the rotational coherence with laser light tuned close to this transition.

We probe photoinduced loss for chemically stable bosonic ^{23}Na^{87}Rb and ^{23}Na^{39}K molecules in chopped optical dipole traps, where the molecules spend a significant time in the dark. We expect the effective two-body decay to be significantly suppressed due to the small expected complex lifetimes of about 13 and 6  μs for ^{23}Na^{87}Rb and ^{23}Na^{39}K, respectively. However, instead we do not observe any suppression of the two-body loss in parameter ranges where large loss suppressions are expected. We believe these unexpected results are most probably due to drastic underestimation of the complex lifetime by at least 1-2 orders of magnitude.

Starting from an ultracold sample of ground-state $^{23}$Na$^{87}$Rb molecules, we investigate the lowest ro-vibrational level of the $b^3\Pi$ state with high resolution laser spectroscopy. This electronic spin-forbidden $X^1\Sigma^+ \leftrightarrow b^3\Pi$ transition features a nearly diagonal Franck-Condon factor and has been proposed useful for probing and manipulating the ultracold molecular gas. We measure the transition strength directly by probing the ac Stark shift induced by near resonance light and determine the total excited-state spontaneous emission rate by observing the loss of molecules. From the extracted branching ratio and the theoretical modeling, we find that the leakage to the continuum of the $a^3\Sigma^+$ state plays the dominant role in the total transition linewidth. Based on these results, we show that it is feasible to create optical trapping potentials for maximizing the rotational coherence with laser light tuned to near this transition.

We report measurements of the ac polarizabilities of ultracold ground-state NaRb molecules. While the polarizability of the ground rotational state J = 0 is isotropic, that of the first excited rotational state J = 1 is anisotropic and depends strongly on the light polarization angle. We obtain both polarizabilities precisely by combining trap oscillation frequency measurement and high resolution rotational spectroscopy driven by microwave. With the optimized light polarization angle and intensity combination, the nonuniformity of the differential ac Stark shift between the two rotational states is minimized and the rotational coherence time is observed to be the longest.

The dipolar collision between ultracold polar molecules is an important topic both by its own right from the fundamental point of view and for the successful exploration of many-body physics with strong and long-range dipolar interactions. Here, we report the investigation of collisions between ultracold ground-state sodium-rubidium molecules in electric fields with induced electric dipole moments as large as 0.7 D. We observe a stepwise enhancement of losses due to the coupling between different partial waves induced by the increasingly stronger anisotropic dipolar interactions. Varying the temperature of our sample, we find good agreement with theoretical loss rates assuming complex formation as the main loss process. Our results shed new light on the understanding of complex molecular collisions in the presence of strong dipolar interactions and also demonstrate the versatility of modifying molecular interactions with electric fields.

We report the full control over the internal states of ultracold $^{23}$Na$^{87}$Rb molecules, including vibrational, rotational and hyperfine degrees of freedom. Starting from a sample of weakly bound Feshbach molecules, we realize the creation of molecules in single hyperfine levels of both the rovibrational ground and excited states with a high-efficiency and high-resolution stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. Starting from the rovibrational and hyperfine ground state, we demonstrate rotational and hyperfine control with one- and two-photon microwave spectroscopy. This achievement of fully controlling the molecular internal states paves the way to study state dependent molecular collisions and state controlled chemical reactions.

An efficient quantum storage is highly desired for quantum information processing. As indicated by certain applications, a universal quantum storage is required to have a storage efficiency above 50% to beat the no-cloning limit. Although significant progress has been achieved in improving various quantum storage, the best storage efficiency of single photons is still below this criteria. By integrating a highly controllable single photon source with an optimized quantum storage, here we demonstrate an optical storage of single photons with storage efficiency of 65% in a cold atomic ensemble based on electromagnetically induced transparency. Meanwhile, the nonclassical characteristics of our storage are verified through the well-maintained nonclassical and single photon nature of the retrieved single photons.

An efficient quantum storage with high storage efficiency above 50% is essential to many quantum applications that require low channel loss. Although significant progress has been made in improving the performance of quantum storage, the best storage efficiency of single photons is still lower than this threshold. By solving the difficulties in integrating a single photon source with a well-designed quantum storage,suppressing the photon noise in the single photon channel and optimizing the experimental parameters, here we demonstrate a quantum storage of single photons with storage efficiency of 65% in a cold atomic ensemble based on electromagnetically induced transparency. Meanwhile, the quantum characteristics of our storage are verified through the well-maintained quantum nature of the retrieval single photons.

Light's wave-particle duality is at the heart of quantum mechanics and can be well illustrated by Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment: The choice of inserting or removing the second classical (quantum) beam splitter in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer determines the classical (quantum) wave-particle behavior of a photon. In this paper, we report our experiment on directly observing simultaneous wave and particle behavior in a narrowband single-photon wave packet by classically inserting or removing the second beam splitter when part of the wave packet passes through it. Our experiment demonstrates that the produced wave-particle state can be utilized in encoding quantum information.

在时域上操控单光子的波形不但可以应用到基础量子物理研究,也可以应用到量子信息处理.窄线宽纠缠光子对的成功产生让时域上操控单光子的波形成为可能.本文首先介绍了利用四波混频和慢光技术在大光学厚度的冷原子系综中产生窄线宽纠缠光子对,进而获得宣布式可控波形单光子的工作.在此基础上,本文进一步介绍了宣布式可控波形单光子波形的操控.然后介绍宣布式可控波形单光子在基础量子物理和量子通信方面的应用,具体包括:(1)单光子光前驱波;(2)宣布式可控波形单光子与二能级原子相干相互作用;(3)宣布式可控波形单光子差分相位编码量子密钥分发.