Atoms in structured light - here you see them, there you don\'t
Prof. Dr. Sonja Franke-Arnold (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow)

It is said that an image is worth a thousand words - and an image that additionally contains phase and vectorial information even more. At Glasgow we aim to exploit the full complex vector nature of light, and in particular of light that contains phase and polarisation singularities. I will give an overview of structured light, its generation and detection, and its interaction with atomic gasses.

Cold atoms are usually only sensitive to the intensity profile of resonant light - the atoms produce a "shadow" in the light beam. By encoding light with correlated phase and polarisation structures we have managed to modulate the opacity of our cold rubidium atoms, dictated by the local phase profile, generating spatially varying EIT. Associated effects may allow the generation of a new type of atomic image memory.