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Rydberg atoms are atoms with at least one electron excited into a state with high principal quantum number. As the polarisability of Rydberg atoms scales as the seventh power of the principal quantum number, Rydberg atoms are candidates for the realisation of single site addressability of neutral atoms in optical lattices and for the manipulation for quantum information processing in general.
In our experimental scheme the atoms are loaded from a magneto-optical trap into a one dimensional lattice with a 600 nm lattice constant. A Rydberg state with a principal quantum number n = 70 can be addressed by a moderate electric field gradient. Using a novel scheme for laser locking to any excited state transition, we demonstrate a combined two-photon excitation linewidth to the Rydberg state of 200 kHz, which is sufficiently small to exclusively address a single lattice site. In order to realise a phase stable Raman laser scheme we present a setup that shifts the resonant light using an EOM and then filter out the remaining carrier light. For this purpose the giant Faraday effect found in a Doppler broadened slow-light medium is used to create a narrow band filter to separate the different components. |
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