title: Single-atom manipulations in a microscopic dipole trap.
abstract: We have realized a very small optical dipole trap that is designed to store and manipulate individual atoms. Due to the very small dipole-trap volume, a 'collisional blockade' mechanism locks the average number of trapped atoms at a value of 0.5 over a large range of loading rates. Here we describe methods to characterize the motion of a single trapped atom, and we also demonstrate the possibility of trapping two atoms individually at a short distance apart. Finally, we study theoretically the possibility to perform 'conditional quantum logic' by scattering photons from two such atoms.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, UMR 8501 du CNRS, BP 147, 91403 Orsay Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reymond
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schlosser
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Protsenko
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grangier