Observation of Rydberg blockade between two atoms

We demonstrate experimentally that a single Rb atom excited to the $79d_{5/2}$ level blocks the subsequent excitation of a second atom located more than $10 murm m$ away. The observed probability of double excitation of $sim 30%$ is consistent with a theoretical model based on calculations of the long range dipole-dipole interaction between atoms.

Rabi flopping between ground and Rydberg states with dipole-dipole atomic interactions

We demonstrate Rabi flopping of small numbers of $rm{^{87}Rb}$ atoms between ground and Rydberg states with $nle 43$. Coherent population oscillations are observed for single atom flopping, while the presence of two or more atoms decoheres the oscillations. We show that these observations are consistent with van der Waals interactions of Rydberg atoms.