title: Excitation of a single atom with exponentially rising light pulses.
abstract: We investigate the interaction between a single atom and optical pulses in a coherent state with a controlled temporal envelope. In a comparison between a rising exponential and a square envelope, we show that the rising exponential envelope leads to a higher excitation probability for fixed low average photon numbers, in accordance with a time-reversed Weisskopf-Wigner model. We characterize the atomic transition dynamics for a wide range of the average photon numbers and are able to saturate the optical transition of a single atom with ≈50 photons in a pulse by a strong focusing technique.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543.
authors.forename: Syed Abdullah
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Aljunid
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543.
authors.forename: Gleb
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Maslennikov
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543.
authors.forename: Yimin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hoang Lan
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Dao
authors.affiliation: Center for Quantum Technologies and Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543.
authors.forename: Valerio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Scarani
authors.affiliation: Center for Quantum Technologies and Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kurtsiefer