Excitation of a single atom with a temporaly shaped light pulses

We investigate the interaction between a single atom and coherent optical pulses with a controlled temporal envelope. By switching the temporal shape from rising exponential to square profile, we show that the rising exponential envelope leads to higher excitation probability using lower photon number in a pulse. The atomic transition saturates for $\approx$ 100 photons in a pulse. Rabi oscillations with 100\,MHz frequency are visible in detected fluorescence for excitations powers of $\approx$ 1300 photons in a 15\,ns pulse. A possibility to excite the atom with pulses in a Fock states is discussed and the theoretical treatment is presented. \\[4pt] [1] Yimin Wang et al., Phys. Rev. A. {\bf 83} 063842 (2011)\\[0pt] [2] M. Stobinska et al., EPL {\bf 86} 14007 (2009)\\[0pt] [3] I. Gerhardt et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79} 011402(R) (2009)