Optical Nanofibers for Manipulating and Probing Single-Atom Fluorescence

In the present work, the authors proposes a novel method to manipulate atoms and photons using a subwavelength-diameter silica-fiber, an optical nanofiber. We use laser-cooled Cs-atoms as working atom. The paper shows that fluorescence of a very small number of atoms around the optical nanofiber can be measured efficiently by detecting the photons coupled to the guided mode of the nanofiber. Atoms around the nanofiber behave like molecules made up of atom and nanofiber.