  A microfabricated Fabry-Perot optical resonator has been used for atom
detection and photon production with less than 1 atom on average in the cavity
mode. Our cavity design combines the intrinsic scalability of microfabrication
processes with direct coupling of the cavity field to single-mode optical
waveguides or fibers. The presence of the atom is seen through changes in both
the intensity and the noise characteristics of probe light reflected from the
cavity input mirror. An excitation laser passing transversely through the
cavity triggers photon emission into the cavity mode and hence into the
single-mode fiber. These are first steps towards building an optical
microcavity network on an atom chip for applications in quantum information
processing.
