Absorption imaging of a single atom

Details Absorption imaging of a single atom Absorption imaging of a single atom

2012-01-25

arxiv.org/abs/1201.5280v1

Physics

Quantum Physics

Scientific paper

Absorption imaging has played a key role in the advancement of science from van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of red blood cells to modern observations of dust clouds in stellar nebula. Here we show the first absorption imaging of a single atom isolated in vacuum. The simplicity of this system lets us compare our results directly to quantum theory, unlike recent work on absorption imaging of single molecules. The observed image contrast of 3.1(3)% achieved the maximum allowed by quantum theory for our setup, while the imaging resolution was on the order of the 370 nm illumination wavelength. The absorption of photons by single atoms is of immediate interest for quantum information processing (QIP). Our results also point out new opportunities in imaging of light-sensitive samples both in the optical and x-ray regimes. In particular, the dynamics of chromatin in living cells could be imaged without delivering a lethal UV dose.

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