Long lifetime of single atom in optical tweezer with laser cooling

Single cesium atom prepared in a large-magnetic-gradient magneto-optical trap (MOT) has been efficiently loaded into a microscopic far-off-resonance optical trap (FORT, or optical tweezer), and the atom can be transferred back and forth between two traps with high efficiency. The intensity noise spectra of tweezer laser are measured and the heating mechanisms in optical tweezer are analyzed. To prolong the lifetime of single atom trapped in optical tweezer, laser cooling technique is utilized to decrease atom's kinetic energy, and the effective temperature of single atom in tweezer is estimated by the release-and-recapture (R&R) method. Thanks to laser cooling, typical lifetime of ~ 130.6 ± 1.8 s for single atom in tweezer is obtained. These works provides a good starting point for coherent manipulation of single atom.

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