This thesis reports on the first observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using a single atom. To this end, a coherent atomic dark state is used to optically control the transmission of a laser beam. The necessary, enhanced interaction of light and matter is achieved by coupling the atom to the mode of an optical resonator. In addition, the scaling of the transmission spectrum against the atom number and the slowdown of a pulse of light under EIT conditions has been investigated. In a second series of experiments, the efficient generation of atom-photon entanglement on the D1 line of Rubidium is demonstrated. The storage of the single photon in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) entangles the single atom with the BEC, thus realizing an elementary, hybrid quantum network.
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This thesis reports on the first observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using a single atom. To this end, a coherent atomic dark state is used to optically control the transmission of a laser beam. The necessary, enhanced interaction of light and matter is achieved by coupling the atom to the mode of an optical resonator. In addition, the scaling of the transmission spectrum against the atom number and the slowdown of a pulse of light under EIT conditions has been investig...
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