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Alignment-dependent decay rate of an atomic dipole near an optical nanofiber

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posted on 2023-11-30, 17:08 authored by Pablo Solano, Jeffrey A. Grover, Yunlu Xu, Pablo Barberis-Blostein, Jeremy N. Munday, Luis A. Orozco, William D. Phillips, Steven L. Rolston
We study the modification of the atomic spontaneous emission rate, i.e. Purcell effect, of $^{87}$Rb in the vicinity of an optical nanofiber ($\sim$500 nm diameter). We observe enhancement and inhibition of the atomic decay rate depending on the alignment of the induced atomic dipole relative to the nanofiber. Finite-difference time-domain simulations are in quantitative agreement with the measurements when considering the atoms as simple oscillating linear dipoles. This is surprising since the multi-level nature of the atoms should produce a different radiation pattern, predicting smaller modification of the lifetime than the measured ones. This work is a step towards characterizing and controlling atomic properties near optical waveguides, fundamental tools for the development of quantum photonics.

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