RRI researchers develop new algorithm which can produce better images to study ultracold atoms

A research group at the Raman Research Institute (RRI) have designed a new image-correction technique capable of getting better images during the study of cold atoms or atoms at absolute zero temperature.  

A research group at the Raman Research Institute (RRI) have designed a new image-correction technique capable of getting better images during the study of cold atoms or atoms at absolute zero temperature.  

The technique can get rid of 50% unwanted interference fringes in the images which are important for understanding the intriguing quantum mechanics governed properties of atoms at cold temperature better.

“At low temperatures near absolute zero, original properties of atoms based on classical mechanics are replaced and then governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. They hold potential to offer a possibility to study and better understand the atomic properties at such low temperatures,” states the Department of Science and Technology.

The commonly used techniques for the study of ultracold atoms is by deploying magneto-optical traps with high-power laser cooling techniques. Cold atoms of elements like sodium, potassium, rubidium are commonly studied. Detection techniques, namely the fluorescence, absorption or phase-contrast imaging techniques are used. Of these, the imaging through fluorescence or absorption techniques are widely used.

However, the images obtained using these techniques often suffer due to unwanted interference fringes which are unwanted dark-bright patterns imprinted on the actual images, thus lowering the quality of results obtained. The presence of unwanted interference fringes has the potential to derail the accurate calculation of important parameters -- the atom number, temperature, dynamics in smaller timescales, etc.

In order to address this interference problem the researchers have developed an image-correction solution.

In the paper published recently in the journal Applied Optics, RRI team has claimed that the proposed technique could reduce the interference fringes in the absorption imaging of cold atoms by nearly 50 percent. In addition, there was a marked improvement, of the order of 50 percent, obtained in the temperature uncertainties in cold Rubidium atoms, when this algorithm was applied.