Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) can give rise to interesting physics, from spin Hall to topological insulators, in condensed matter systems. Recently, this topical area has extended into atomic quantum gases in searching for artificial or synthetic gauge potentials. The prospects of tunable interaction and quantum state control promote neutral atoms as nature's quantum emulators for SOC. Lin et al. recently demonstrated a special form of the SOC $k_x{\sigma }_y$, which they interpret as an equal superposition of Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings in Bose-condensed atoms [Lin, Jiménez-García, and Spielman, Nature (London) 471, 83 (2011)]. This work reports a method of implementing arbitrary forms of SOC by switching between two pairs of Raman laser pulses like the method used by Lin et al. While one pair affects $k_x{\sigma }_y$ for some time, a second pair creates $k_y{\sigma }_y$ at other times with Raman pulses from different directions and a subsequent spin rotation into $\pm k_y{\sigma }_x$. With a sufficient number of pulses, the effective actions from different durations are small and accumulate in the same exponent despite the fact that $k_x{\sigma }_y$ and $\pm k_y{\sigma }_x$ do not commute. Our scheme involves no added complication and can be demonstrated within current experiments. It applies equally to bosonic or fermionic atoms.

• Received 24 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.043605