Optical transport and manipulation of an ultracold atomic cloud using focus-tunable lenses

Abstract

We present an optical setup with focus-tunable lenses to dynamically control the waist and focus position of a laser beam, in which we transport a trapped ultracold cloud of 87Rb over a distance of $28\;{\rm cm}$. The scheme allows us to shift the focus position at constant waist, providing uniform trapping conditions over the full transport length. The fraction of atoms that are transported over the entire distance comes near to unity, while the heating of the cloud is in the range of a few microkelvin. We characterize the position stability of the focus and show that residual drift rates in focus position can be compensated for by counteracting with the tunable lenses. Beyond being a compact and robust scheme to transport ultracold atoms, the reported control of laser beams makes dynamic tailoring of trapping potentials possible. As an example, we steer the size of the atomic cloud by changing the waist size of the dipole beam.