Abstract

Developing micro-structured devices to manipulate atoms and photons is becoming a major target in the field of quantum optics. Various ideas have been proposed so far in this context. In the present work we propose a novel method to manipulate atoms and photons using a subwavelength-diameter silica-fiber, an optical nanofiber. We use laser-cooled Cs-atoms as working atom. We show that fluorescence of a very small number of atoms around the optical nanofiber can be measured efficiently by detecting the photons coupled to the guided mode of the nanofiber. We show also that atoms around the nanofiber behave like molecules made up of atom and nanofiber. Key issue of the present method is that, due to the field confinement around the nanofiber, spontaneous emission of atoms can be strongly modified around the nanofiber and an appreciable amount of fluorescence photons can be channeled into a single guided mode of the nanofiber [1].

© 2007 IEEE