Assembly and development of the prototype Single Atom Microscope

The Single Atom Microscope is an optical detection system under development for measuring the cross section of low yield nuclear reactions that are influential in nucleosynthesis. Under this system, the atomic products of the nuclear reaction are captured in a rare gas solid film that has been deposited on a cryogenically cooled transparent substrate. Once captured, the product atoms undergo resonant laser excitation and the emitted fluorescence light is optically imaged onto a sensitive CCD camera, at which point the product atoms can be individually counted. Single atom sensitivity is feasible due to the rare gas lattice surrounding the product atoms, which facilitates a large wavelength shift between the product atoms’ excitation and emission spectra as large as hundreds of nanometers. This detection scheme offers high efficiency, atomic selectivity, and most importantly is not sensitive to traditional sources of background. A prototype Single Atom Microscope has been assembled and an update on its’ testing and development will be presented, along with current status and future plans.