Enhancing single-atom loading in tightly confined dipole traps with ancillary dipole beam
Abstract: Single atoms trapped in tightly focused optical dipole traps provide an excellent experimental platform for quantum computing, precision measurement, and fundamental physics research. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a novel approach to enhancing the loading of single atoms by introducing a weak ancillary dipole beam. The loading rate of single atoms in a dipole trap can be significantly improved by only a few tens of microwatts of counter-propagating beam. It was also demonstrated that multiple atoms could be loaded with the assistance of a counter-propagating beam. By reducing the power requirements for trapping single atoms and enabling the trapping of multiple atoms, our method facilitates the extension of single-atom arrays and the investigation of collective light-atom interactions.
- A. M. Kaufman, B. J. Lester, C. M. Reynolds, M. L. Wall, M. Foss-Feig, K. R. A. Hazzard, A. M. Rey, and C. A. Regal, “Two-particle quantum interference in tunnel-coupled optical tweezers,” Science 345, 306 (2014).
- M. O. Brown, S. R. Muleady, W. J. Dworschack, R. J. Lewis-Swan, A. M. Rey, O. Romero-Isart, and C. A. Regal, “Time-of-flight quantum tomography of an atom in an optical tweezer,” Nature Physics 19, 569 (2023).
- D. O’Shea, C. Junge, J. Volz, and A. Rauschenbeutel, “Fiber-Optical Switch Controlled by a Single Atom,” Physical Review Letters 111, 193601 (2013).
- Y.-S. Chin, M. Steiner, and C. Kurtsiefer, “Nonlinear photon-atom coupling with 4Pi microscopy,” Nature Communications 8, 1200 (2017).
- E. Deist, Y.-H. Lu, J. Ho, M. K. Pasha, J. Zeiher, Z. Yan, and D. M. Stamper-Kurn, “Mid-Circuit Cavity Measurement in a Neutral Atom Array,” Physical Review Letters 129, 203602 (2022).
- Y. Liu, Z. Wang, P. Yang, Q. Wang, Q. Fan, S. Guan, G. Li, P. Zhang, and T. Zhang, “Realization of Strong Coupling between Deterministic Single-Atom Arrays and a High-Finesse Miniature Optical Cavity,” Physical Review Letters 130, 173601 (2023).
- E. Will, L. Masters, A. Rauschenbeutel, M. Scheucher, and J. Volz, “Coupling a Single Trapped Atom to a Whispering-Gallery-Mode Microresonator,” Physical Review Letters 126, 233602 (2021).
- X. Zhou, H. Tamura, T.-H. Chang, and C.-L. Hung, “Coupling Single Atoms to a Nanophotonic Whispering-Gallery-Mode Resonator via Optical Guiding,” Physical Review Letters 130, 103601 (2023).
- M. Saffman, “Quantum computing with neutral atoms,” National Science Review 6, 24 (2019).
- A. Browaeys and T. Lahaye, “Many-body physics with individually controlled Rydberg atoms,” Nature Physics 16, 132 (2020).
- M. Morgado and S. Whitlock, “Quantum simulation and computing with Rydberg-interacting qubits,” AVS Quantum Science 3, 023501 (2021).
- X. Wu, X. Liang, Y. Tian, F. Yang, C. Chen, Y.-C. Liu, M. K. Tey, and L. You, “A concise review of Rydberg atom based quantum computation and quantum simulation*,” Chinese Physics B 30, 020305 (2021).
- R. Grimm, M. Weidemüller, and Y. B. Ovchinnikov, “Optical Dipole Traps for Neutral Atoms,” in Advances in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, December (2000) pp. 95–170.
- S. J. M. Kuppens, K. L. Corwin, K. W. Miller, T. E. Chupp, and C. E. Wieman, “Loading an optical dipole trap,” Physical Review A 62, 013406 (2000).
- S. Li, G. Li, P. Yang, Z. Wang, P. Zhang, and T. Zhang, “Versatile objectives with NA = 0.55 and NA = 0.78 for cold-atom experiments,” Optics Express 28, 36122 (2020).
- N. Schlosser, G. Reymond, I. Protsenko, and P. Grangier, “Sub-poissonian loading of single atoms in a microscopic dipole trap,” Nature 411, 1024 (2001).
- N. Schlosser, G. Reymond, and P. Grangier, “Collisional Blockade in Microscopic Optical Dipole Traps,” Physical Review Letters 89, 023005 (2002).
- Y. H. Fung and M. F. Andersen, “Efficient collisional blockade loading of a single atom into a tight microtrap,” New Journal of Physics 17, 073011 (2015).
- D. Barredo, S. de Léséleuc, V. Lienhard, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, “An atom-by-atom assembler of defect-free arbitrary two-dimensional atomic arrays,” Science 354, 1021 (2016).
- M. Endres, H. Bernien, A. Keesling, H. Levine, E. R. Anschuetz, A. Krajenbrink, C. Senko, V. Vuletic, M. Greiner, and M. D. Lukin, “Atom-by-atom assembly of defect-free one-dimensional cold atom arrays,” Science 354, 1024 (2016).
- H. Bernien, S. Schwartz, A. Keesling, H. Levine, A. Omran, H. Pichler, S. Choi, A. S. Zibrov, M. Endres, M. Greiner, V. Vuletic, and M. D. Lukin, “Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator,” Nature 551, 579 (2017).
- A. M. Kaufman and K. K. Ni, “Quantum science with optical tweezer arrays of ultracold atoms and molecules,” Nature Physics 17, 1324 (2021).
- C. Sheng, J. Hou, X. He, K. Wang, R. Guo, J. Zhuang, B. Mamat, P. Xu, M. Liu, J. Wang, and M. Zhan, “Defect-Free Arbitrary-Geometry Assembly of Mixed-Species Atom Arrays,” Physical Review Letters 128, 083202 (2022).
- D. Barredo, V. Lienhard, S. de Léséleuc, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, “Synthetic three-dimensional atomic structures assembled atom by atom,” Nature 561, 79 (2018).
- H. Labuhn, D. Barredo, S. Ravets, S. De Léséleuc, T. Macrì, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, “Tunable two-dimensional arrays of single Rydberg atoms for realizing quantum Ising models,” Nature 534, 667 (2016).
- A. Omran, H. Levine, A. Keesling, G. Semeghini, T. T. Wang, S. Ebadi, H. Bernien, A. S. Zibrov, H. Pichler, S. Choi, J. Cui, M. Rossignolo, P. Rembold, S. Montangero, T. Calarco, M. Endres, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, “Generation and manipulation of Schrödinger cat states in Rydberg atom arrays,” Science 365, 570 (2019).
- S. Shi, B. Xu, K. Zhang, G. S. Ye, D. S. Xiang, Y. Liu, J. Wang, D. Su, and L. Li, “High-fidelity photonic quantum logic gate based on near-optimal Rydberg single-photon source,” Nature Communications 13, 4454 (2022).
- T. M. Graham, Y. Song, J. Scott, C. Poole, L. Phuttitarn, K. Jooya, P. Eichler, X. Jiang, A. Marra, B. Grinkemeyer, M. Kwon, M. Ebert, J. Cherek, M. T. Lichtman, M. Gillette, J. Gilbert, D. Bowman, T. Ballance, C. Campbell, E. D. Dahl, O. Crawford, N. S. Blunt, B. Rogers, T. Noel, and M. Saffman, “Multi-qubit entanglement and algorithms on a neutral-atom quantum computer,” Nature 604, 457 (2022).
- I. Bloch, “Quantum coherence and entanglement with ultracold atoms in optical lattices,” Nature 453, 1016 (2008).
- C. Gross and I. Bloch, “Quantum simulations with ultracold atoms in optical lattices,” Science 357, 995 (2017).
- B. Yang, H. Sun, R. Ott, H.-Y. Wang, T. V. Zache, J. C. Halimeh, Z.-S. Yuan, P. Hauke, and J.-W. Pan, “Observation of gauge invariance in a 71-site Bose–Hubbard quantum simulator,” Nature 587, 392 (2020a).
- B. Yang, H. Sun, C.-J. Huang, H.-Y. Wang, Y. Deng, H.-N. Dai, Z.-S. Yuan, and J.-W. Pan, “Cooling and entangling ultracold atoms in optical lattices,” Science 369, 550 (2020b).
- M. J. Piotrowicz, M. Lichtman, K. Maller, G. Li, S. Zhang, L. Isenhower, and M. Saffman, “Two-dimensional lattice of blue-detuned atom traps using a projected Gaussian beam array,” Physical Review A 88, 013420 (2013).
- S. L. Campbell, R. B. Hutson, G. E. Marti, A. Goban, N. Darkwah Oppong, R. L. McNally, L. Sonderhouse, J. M. Robinson, W. Zhang, B. J. Bloom, and J. Ye, “A Fermi-degenerate three-dimensional optical lattice clock,” Science 358, 90 (2017).
- T. Takano, M. Takamoto, I. Ushijima, N. Ohmae, T. Akatsuka, A. Yamaguchi, Y. Kuroishi, H. Munekane, B. Miyahara, and H. Katori, “Geopotential measurements with synchronously linked optical lattice clocks,” Nature Photonics 10, 662 (2016).
- Z.-B. Wang, C. Gu, X.-X. Hu, Y.-T. Zhang, J.-Z. Zhang, G. Li, X. He, X.-B. Zou, C. Dong, G.-c. Guo, and C.-L. Zou, “Controllable atomic collision in a tight optical dipole trap,” Optics Letters 48, 1064 (2023).
- A. Vochezer, T. Kampschulte, K. Hammerer, and P. Treutlein, “Light-Mediated Collective Atomic Motion in an Optical Lattice Coupled to a Membrane,” Physical Review Letters 120, 073602 (2018).
- G.-J. Chen, D. Zhao, Z.-B. Wang, Z. Li, J.-Z. Zhang, L. Chen, Y.-L. Zhang, X.-B. Xu, A.-P. Liu, C.-H. Dong, G.-C. Guo, K. Huang, and C.-L. Zou, “Trapping and characterizing single atom using metalens,” In preparation (2023).
- T.-W. Hsu, W. Zhu, T. Thiele, M. O. Brown, S. B. Papp, A. Agrawal, and C. A. Regal, “Single-Atom Trapping in a Metasurface-Lens Optical Tweezer,” PRX Quantum 3, 030316 (2022).
- M. E. Kim, T.-H. Chang, B. M. Fields, C.-A. Chen, and C.-L. Hung, “Trapping single atoms on a nanophotonic circuit with configurable tweezer lattices,” Nature Communications 10, 1647 (2019).
- K. N. Schymik, B. Ximenez, E. Bloch, D. Dreon, A. Signoles, F. Nogrette, D. Barredo, A. Browaeys, and T. Lahaye, “In situ equalization of single-atom loading in large-scale optical tweezer arrays,” Physical Review A 106, 022611 (2022).
- A. J. Hilliard, Y. H. Fung, P. Sompet, A. V. Carpentier, and M. F. Andersen, “In-trap fluorescence detection of atoms in a microscopic dipole trap,” Physical Review A 91, 053414 (2015).
- X.-X. Hu, C.-L. Zhao, Z.-B. Wang, Y.-L. Zhang, X.-B. Zou, C.-H. Dong, H. X. Tang, G.-C. Guo, and C.-L. Zou, “Cavity-enhanced optical controlling based on three-wave mixing in cavity-atom ensemble system,” Optics Express 27, 6660 (2019).
- T. Bothwell, C. J. Kennedy, A. Aeppli, D. Kedar, J. M. Robinson, E. Oelker, A. Staron, and J. Ye, “Resolving the gravitational redshift across a millimetre-scale atomic sample,” Nature 602, 420 (2022).
- A. W. Young, W. J. Eckner, W. R. Milner, D. Kedar, M. A. Norcia, E. Oelker, N. Schine, J. Ye, and A. M. Kaufman, “Half-minute-scale atomic coherence and high relative stability in a tweezer clock,” Nature 588, 408 (2020).
- M. A. Norcia, A. W. Young, W. J. Eckner, E. Oelker, J. Ye, and A. M. Kaufman, “Seconds-scale coherence on an optical clock transition in a tweezer array,” Science 366, 93 (2019).
Paper Prompts
Sign up for free to create and run prompts on this paper using GPT-5.
Top Community Prompts
Collections
Sign up for free to add this paper to one or more collections.