Category Archives: Projects

Pedro Rivero Antunez

5/2024 – today Postdoc on BEC

Pedro obtained a 4-year Physics degree in 2016 from the University of Seville (Spain), and a master’s degree in Particle Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Granada (2017), finishing his master thesis entitled «Axial Anomaly in the 5d-Anti-deSitter /4d-Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence».

His academic journey continued with a PhD focusing on fabrication and characterization of nanostructured ceramics at the Department of Condensed Matter Physics of the University of Seville, where he graduated in June 2023.

In May 2024, he joined the Cretan Matter Waves group as a postdoc researcher for the BEC2 project.

Our Atomtronic PRL is published!

Our latest PRL entitled “Atomtronic Matter-Wave Lensing” has just been published in Physical Review Letters.
It has been featured as a synopsis in Physics.APS.org.

Saurabh was the driving force behind this. He believed that this paper could go far and made sure that these great results get the attention it deserves.   The effort paid of — thanks and congratulations to the whole team!

Atomtronic Matter-Wave Lensing
Saurabh Pandey, Hector Mas, Georgios Vasilakis, and Wolf von Klitzing
Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 170402 (2021)
Published April 28, 2021

PRL: Atomtronic Matter-Wave Lensing to pico-Kelvin temperatures

Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 170402 (2021)

S. Pandey, H. Mas, G. Vasilakis, and W. von Klitzing 

Our latest PRL entitled “Atomtronic Matter-Wave Lensing” has just been published in Physical Review Letters.
It has been featured as a synopsis in Physics.APS.org.

Abstract

In this Letter, we demonstrate magnetogravitational matter-wave lensing as a novel tool in atom-optics in atomtronic waveguides. We collimate and focus matter waves originating from Bose-Einstein condensates and ultracold thermal atoms in ring-shaped time-averaged adiabatic potentials. We demonstrate “delta-kick cooling” of Bose-Einstein condensates, reducing their expansion energies by a factor of 46 down to 800 pK. The atomtronic waveguide ring has a diameter of less than one millimeter, compared to other state- of-the-art experiments requiring zero gravity or free-flight distances of ten meters and more. This level of control with extremely reduced spatial requirements is an important step toward atomtronic quantum sensors.

A synopsis was published in Physics — https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/s55

Figure 3 from the paper demonstrating cooling by a factor of XX down to the picokelvin (pK) level

Decoherence-free Subspace data

Our latest paper: Decoherence-free radiofrequency dressed subspaces in online

Decoherence-free radiofrequency dressed subspaces

G.A. Sinuco-Leon, H. Mas, S. Pandey, G. Vasilakis, B.M. Garraway, W. von Klitzing

We study the spectral signatures and coherence properties of radiofrequency dressed hyperfine Zeeman sub-levels of 87Rb. Experimentally, we engineer combinations of static and RF magnetic fields to modify the response of the atomic spin states to environmental magnetic field noise. We demonstrate analytically and experimentally the existence of ‘magic’ dressing conditions where decoherence due to electromagnetic field noise is strongly suppressed. Building upon this result, we propose a bi-chromatic dressing configuration that reduces the global sensitivity of the atomic ground states to low-frequency noise, and enables the simultaneous protection of multiple transitions between the two ground hyperfine manifolds of atomic alkali species. Our methods produce protected transitions between any pair of hyperfine sub-levels at arbitrary (low) DC-magnetic fields.

Now on arXive !n

Microwave spectroscopy of radio-frequency dressed 87Rb now on arXive

Our latest paper on the spectroscopy between dressed levels of rubidium atoms is out on arXive (pdf).

Abstract:

We study the hyperfine spectrum of atoms of 87Rb dressed by a radio-frequency field, and present experimental results in three different situations: freely falling atoms, atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap and atoms in an adiabatic radio-frequency dressed shell trap. In all cases, we observe several resonant side bands spaced at intervals equal to the dressing frequency, corresponding to transitions enabled by the dressing field. We theoretically explain the main features of the microwave spectrum, using a semi-classical model in the low field limit and the Rotating Wave Approximation. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate how the spectral signal of a dressed atomic ensemble enables an accurate determination of the dressing configuration and the probing microwave field.

FOMO 2018 on Crete

We will organise the next Frontiers of Matterwave Optics conference and summer school!

The school will be held in Archanes close to Heraklion and the conference close to Chania. We have already assembled a very nice list of speakers… more news soon  to come.

CONFERENCE: Crete 17.Sept. – 21.Sept. 2018
SUMMER SCHOOL 10.Sept. – 14.Sept. 2018

More info to come soon at http://www.matterwaveoptics.eu

 

Making BECs smile.

Just for fun… BECs can also smile:  This is a BEC loaded from a dipole trap into a TAAP trap and then propagated for some time. The picture is an absorption  image with darker standing for a higher number of atoms.

We are also learning to write  😉 … for example the letter H

An H-shaped thermal cloud of Rb87 atoms (black is more atoms)

And our latest addition …  the number 9

A BEC in a ring-accelerator. We first load a BEC into a dipole trap and then into the ring. We then accelerate the BEC to speeds, where the centripetal confinement is not sufficient to keep the BEC in the storage ring. (white=more atoms)

 

And of course our smiling BEC

A smiling BEC — a reproducible chance event.
(black is more atoms)

Matter-wave interferometers using TAAP rings

New Journal of Physics   18   075014 (2016)

P. Navez, S. Pandey, H. Mas, K. Poulios, T. Fernholz, and W. von Klitzing

doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/18/7/075014

Fig 2

Figure 2. Experimental realisation of a ring-shaped TAAP waveguide. The radius of the ring is R = 570 μm.

Abstract: We present two novel matter-wave Sagnac interferometers based on ring-shaped time-averaged adiabatic potentials, where the atoms are put into a superposition of two different spin states and manipulated independently using elliptically polarized rf-fields. In the first interferometer the atoms are accelerated by spin-state-dependent forces and then travel around the ring in a matter-wave guide. In the second one the atoms are fully trapped during the entire interferometric sequence and are moved around the ring in two spin-state-dependent `buckets’.

Figure 6.

Figure 6. Experimental realisation of arbitrary traps. The fitted radius is 440 μm and 450 μm respectively.  Note that (a) and (b) are taken with identical experimental conditions and differ only in the state of the atoms. The axis of the circular rf component and the one of the tilted modulation are not orthogonal.

Corrections to the ideal Sagnac phase are investigated for both cases. We experimentally demonstrate the key atom-optical elements of the interferometer such as the independent manipulation of two different spin states in the ring-shaped potentials under identical experimental conditions.