Atomic transport in optical lattices

This thesis includes both experimental and theoretical investigations of fluctuation-induced transport phenomena, presented in a series of nine papers, by studies of the dynamics of cold atoms in dissipative optical lattices. With standard laser cooling techniques about 108 cesium atoms are accumulated, cooled to a few μK, and transferred into a dissipative optical lattice. An optical lattice is a periodic light-shift potential, and in dissipative optical lattice the light field is sufficiently close to resonance for incoherent light scattering to be of importance. This provides the system with a diffusive force, but also with a friction through laser cooling mechanisms. In the dissipative optical lattices the friction and the diffusive force will eventually reach a steady state. At steady state, the thermal energy is low enough, compared to the potential depth, for the atoms to be localized close to the potential minima, but high enough for the atoms to occasionally make inter-well flights. This leads to a Brownian motion of the atoms in the optical lattices. In the normal case these random walks average to zero, leading to a symmetric, isotropic diffusion of the atoms. If the optical lattices are tilted, the symmetry is broken and the diffusion will be biased. This leads to a fluctuation-induced drift of the atoms. In this thesis an investigation of such drifts, for an optical lattice tilted by the gravitational force, is presented. We show that even though the tilt over a potential period is small compared to the potential depth, it clearly affect the dynamics of the atoms, and despite the complex details of the system it can, to a good approximation, be described by the Langevin equation formalism for a particle in a periodic potential. The linear drifts give evidence of stop-and-go dynamics where the atoms escape the potential wells and travel over one or more wells before being recaptured. Brownian motors open the possibility of creating fluctuation-induced drifts in the absence of bias forces, if two requirements are fulfilled: the symmetry has to be broken and the system has to be brought out of thermal equilibrium. By utilizing two distinguishable optical lattices, with a relative spatial phase and unequal transfer rates between them, these requirements can be fulfilled. In this thesis, such a Brownian motor is realized, and drifts in arbitrary directions in 3D are demonstrated. We also demonstrate a real-time steering of the transport as well as drifts along pre-designed paths. Moreover, we present measurements and discussions of performance characteristics of the motor, and we show that the required asymmetry can be obtained in multiple ways