Realization of two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling for Bose-Einstein condensates

By Zhan Wu, Long Zhang, Wei Sun, Xiao-Tian Xu, Bao-Zong Wang, S. Ji, Youjin Deng, Shuai Chen, Xiong-Jun Liu, Jian-Wei Pan. Science, 2015

654 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spin-orbit coupling in an optical lattice Studying topological matter in cold-atom systems may bring fresh insights, thanks to the intrinsic purity and controllability of this experimental setting. However, the necessary spin-orbit coupling can be tricky to engineer. Wu et al. conceived and experimentally demonstrated a simple scheme that involves only a single laser source and can be continuously tuned between one- and two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling (see the Perspective by Aidelsburger). Although this experiment used bosonic atoms, it is expected that the setup would also work for fermions. Science, this issue p. 83; see also p. 35 Rubidium atoms are used to demonstrate a spin-orbit coupling scheme that is tunable between the 1- and 2D limits. [Also see Perspective by Aidelsburger] Cold atoms with laser-induced spin-orbit (SO) interactions provide a platform to explore quantum physics beyond natural conditions of solids. Here we propose and experimentally realize two-dimensional (2D) SO coupling and topological bands for a rubidium-87 degenerate gas through an optical Raman lattice, without phase-locking or fine-tuning of optical potentials. A controllable crossover between 2D and 1D SO couplings is studied, and the SO effects and nontrivial band topology are observed by measuring the atomic cloud distribution and spin texture in momentum space. Our realization of 2D SO coupling with advantages of small heating and topological stability opens a broad avenue in cold atoms to study exotic quantum phases, including topological superfluids.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b244ea322cbc90e5d5a950765ee5d512da50c19f

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

Realization of an anomalous Floquet topological system with ultracold atoms (2020, background): “[15] Z.”
Topological bands for ultracold atoms (2018, positive): “A predecessor of this setup described by Wu et al. (2016) generated a 2D optical lattice with spin-orbit coupling with 87Rb atoms (a first realization of 2D spin-orbit coupling was reported by Huang et al. (2016) for a bulk geometry).”
Artificial gauge fields in materials and engineered systems (2017, neutral): “[377], which was implemented in an optical lattice, led to topological Bloch bands with non-zero Chern numbers (see Section 4.”
Topological characterizations of an extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model (2019, neutral): “[21] Wu, Z.”
Topological quantum matter with ultracold gases in optical lattices (2016, methodology): “With the recent advances in the experimental realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling in ultracold quantum gases [51, 91, 92], all the individual ingredients for synthetic topological superfluids in fermionic quantum gases are in place and several concrete proposals, both for the 2D p+ ip superf”
Topological Phases of Non-Hermitian Systems (2018, neutral): “[19] Zhan Wu, Long Zhang, Wei Sun, Xiao-Tian Xu, Bao-Zong Wang, Si-Cong Ji, Youjin Deng, Shuai Chen, Xiong-Jun Liu, and Jian-Wei Pan, “Realization of two-dimensional spinorbit coupling for bose-einstein condensates,” Science 354, 83 (2016).”