Light-induced atomic elevator in optical lattices

Abstract

It is shown how an atomic elevator that can elevate falling cold atoms in a vertical optical lattice can be created. The effect appears near resonance owing to the nonlinear interaction between the electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom of an atom, which is responsible for its random walk in rigid optical lattices without any modulation and additional action. Numerical experiments involving spontaneous emission demonstrate that random walk of atoms and light-induced atomic elevator can be observed in a real experiment.