Single-shot reconstruction of the density profile of a dense atomic gas

Opt Express. 2020 Sep 28;28(20):29408-29418. doi: 10.1364/OE.397567.

Abstract

Partial transfer absorption imaging (PTAI) of ultracold atoms allows for repeated and minimally-destructive measurements of an atomic ensemble. Here, we present a reconstruction technique based on PTAI that can be used to piece together the non-uniform spatial profile of high-density atomic samples using multiple measurements. We achieved a thirty-fold increase of the effective dynamic range of our imaging, and were able to image otherwise saturated samples with unprecedented accuracy of both low- and high-density features.