Direct reconstruction of the band structure of a one-dimensional optical lattice with thermal atoms

Arnaud Courvoisier, Amruta Gadge, Nir Davidson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We report on a simple method to reconstruct the band structure of a one-dimensional optical lattice using a thermal cloud with a momentum spread of about two photon recoils. We image the momentum distribution of a thermal cloud exposed to a standing-wave potential using time-of-flight absorption images and observe unique features. With the support of numerical calculations, we explain their appearance and show how they can be used to reconstruct the full band structure directly. While this can serve as a precise lattice depth calibration tool, we additionally propose a method to estimate the lattice depth in a single-shot manner.
Original languageEnglish
Article number053313
Number of pages6
JournalPhysical review. A
Volume105
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 31 May 2022

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