TY - JOUR
T1 - Observation of two-dimensional Anderson localisation of ultracold atoms
AU - White, Donald H.
AU - Haase, Thomas A.
AU - Brown, Dylan J.
AU - Hoogerland, Maarten D.
AU - Najafabadi, Mojdeh S.
AU - Helm, John L.
AU - Gies, Christopher
AU - Schumayer, Daniel
AU - Hutchinson, David A.W.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank A.V.H. McPhail and I. Herrera for laboratory assistance, and S.S. Shamailov for detailed discussions. D.H.W. thanks L. Sanchez-Palencia and D. Delande for discussions. C.G would like to thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for financial support during his stay at the University of Otago. This work was supported by the Marsden Fund, grant number UOA1330, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Anderson localisation —the inhibition of wave propagation in disordered media— is a surprising interference phenomenon which is particularly intriguing in two-dimensional (2D) systems. While an ideal, non-interacting 2D system of infinite size is always localised, the localisation length-scale may be too large to be unambiguously observed in an experiment. In this sense, 2D is a marginal dimension between one-dimension, where all states are strongly localised, and three-dimensions, where a well-defined phase transition between localisation and delocalisation exists as the energy is increased. Here, we report the results of an experiment measuring the 2D transport of ultracold atoms between two reservoirs, which are connected by a channel containing pointlike disorder. The design overcomes many of the technical challenges that have hampered observation of localisation in previous works. We experimentally observe exponential localisation in a 2D ultracold atom system.
AB - Anderson localisation —the inhibition of wave propagation in disordered media— is a surprising interference phenomenon which is particularly intriguing in two-dimensional (2D) systems. While an ideal, non-interacting 2D system of infinite size is always localised, the localisation length-scale may be too large to be unambiguously observed in an experiment. In this sense, 2D is a marginal dimension between one-dimension, where all states are strongly localised, and three-dimensions, where a well-defined phase transition between localisation and delocalisation exists as the energy is increased. Here, we report the results of an experiment measuring the 2D transport of ultracold atoms between two reservoirs, which are connected by a channel containing pointlike disorder. The design overcomes many of the technical challenges that have hampered observation of localisation in previous works. We experimentally observe exponential localisation in a 2D ultracold atom system.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-18652-w
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-18652-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 33009375
AN - SCOPUS:85091842724
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 4942
ER -