Phase-Stable Free-Space Optical Lattices for Trapped Ion

CHRISTIAN TOMÁS SCHMIEGELOW; HENNING KAUFMANN; THOMAS RUSTER; JONAS SCHULTZ; VIDIUT KAUSHAL; MAX HETTRICH; FERDINAND SCHMIDT-KALER; ULRICH POSCHINGER

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Año: 2016 vol. 116 p. 1 - 4

0031-9007

We demonstrate control of the absolute phase of an optical lattice with respect to a single trapped ion. The lattice is generated by off-resonant free-space laser beams, and we actively stabilize its phase by measuring its ac-Stark shift on a trapped ion. The ion is localized within the standing wave to better than 2% of its period. The locked lattice allows us to apply displacement operations via resonant optical forces with a controlled direction in phase space. Moreover, we observe the lattice-induced phase evolution of spin superposition states in order to analyze the relevant decoherence mechanisms. Finally, we employ lattice-induced phase shifts for inferring the variation of the ion position over the 157  μm range along the trap axis at accuracies of better than 6 nm.