Absorption of hybrid fibre modes by Cs atoms inquadrupole transitions

Abstract We evaluate the rate of the absorption of an optical nanofibre mode by a Cs atom in an electric quadrupole transition. With the Cs atom localised near the outer surface of the optical nano-fibre, an interaction occurs between the atomic quadrupole tensor components and the gradients of the vector components of the electric field of a hybrid fibre mode. The absorption rate is evaluated as a function of the radial position of the atom from the fibre axis, assuming a specific value of the laser power and we use experimentally accessible parameters. We find that the absorption of the hybrid modes by the Cs atom decreases as the atom recedes away from the fibre axis and it formally vanishes at sufficiently large radial distances. Close to the fibre, however, the absorption rate for the input power chosen can be two orders of magnitude larger than the quadrupole de-excitation rate despite the moderate power used.