title: Detection and quantized conductance of neutral atoms near a charged carbon nanotube.
abstract: We describe a novel single atom detector that uses the high electric field surrounding a charged single-walled carbon nanotube to attract and subsequently field-ionize neutral atoms. A theoretical study of the field-ionization tunneling rates for atomic trajectories in the attractive potential near a nanowire shows that a broadly applicable, high spatial resolution, low-power, neutral-atom detector with nearly 100% efficiency is realizable with present-day technology. Calculations also show that the system can provide the first opportunity to study quantized conductance phenomena when detecting cold neutral atoms with mean velocities less than 15 m/s.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Trygve
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ristroph
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goodsell
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Golovchenko
authors.forename: Lene Vestergaard
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Hau