High efficiency, low cost holographic optical elements for ultracold atom trapping.

We demonstrate a method of creating high efficiency, high fidelity, holographic optical elements for the generation of complex optical fields, in a low cost photopolymer, Bayfol HX. The desired optical field profile is generated by a spatial light modulator and written into an optically addressable photopolymer as a volume hologram. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by trapping a Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium-87 atoms in the nodal plane of an HG mode generated by one of these holographic optical elements.

Optical vortex knots - one photon at a time.

Feynman described the double slit experiment as "a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics". The double-slit experiment, performed one photon at a time, dramatically demonstrates the particle-wave duality of quantum objects by generating a fringe pattern corresponding to the interference of light (a wave phenomenon) from two slits, even when there is only one photon (a particle) at a time passing through the apparatus. The particle-wave duality of light should also apply to complex three dimensional optical fields formed by multi-path interference, however, this has not been demonstrated.