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arXiv:1404.5583 · Physical Review A

Nondestructive imaging of an ultracold lattice gas

Yogesh Sharad Patil, Srivatsan Chakram, Lauren Aycock, Mukund Vengalattore

Published Sep 24, 2014• 29 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We demonstrate the nondestructive imaging of a lattice gas of ultracold bosons. Atomic fluorescence is induced in the simultaneous presence of degenerate Raman sideband cooling. The combined influence of these processes controllably cycles an atom between a dark state and a fluorescing state while eliminating heating and loss. Through spatially resolved sideband spectroscopy following the imaging sequence, we demonstrate the efficacy of this imaging technique in various regimes of lattice depth and fluorescence acquisition rate. Our work provides an important extension of quantum gas imaging to the nondestructive detection, control, and manipulation of atoms in optical lattices. In addition, our technique can also be extended to atomic species that are less amenable to molasses-based lattice imaging.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.90.033422

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We demonstrate the nondestructive imaging of a lattice gas of ultracold bosons. Atomic fluorescence is induced in the simultaneous presence of degenerate Raman sideband cooling. The combined influence of these processes controllably cycles an atom between a dark state and a fluorescing state while eliminating heating and loss. Through spatially resolved sideband spectroscopy following the imaging sequence, we demonstrate the efficacy of this imaging technique in various regimes of lattice depth and fluorescence acquisition rate. Our work provides an important extension of quantum gas imaging to the nondestructive detection, control, and manipulation of atoms in optical lattices. In addition, our technique can also be extended to atomic species that are less amenable to molasses-based lattice imaging.
Abstract We demonstrate single-site-resolved fluorescence imaging of ultracold 87Rb atoms in a triangular optical lattice by employing Raman sideband cooling. Combining a Raman transition at the D1 line and a photon scattering through an optical pumping of the D2 line, we obtain images with low background noise. The Bayesian optimisation of 11 experimental parameters for fluorescence imaging with Raman sideband cooling enables us to achieve single-atom detection with a high fidelity of (96.3 ± 1.3)%. Single-atom and single-site resolved detection in a triangular optical lattice paves the way for the direct observation of spin correlations or entanglement in geometrically frustrated systems.
We realize a quantum-gas microscope for fermionic ^{40}K atoms trapped in an optical lattice, which allows one to probe strongly correlated fermions at the single-atom level. We combine 3D Raman sideband cooling with high-resolution optics to simultaneously cool and image individual atoms with single-lattice-site resolution at a detection fidelity above 95%. The imaging process leaves the atoms predominantly in the 3D motional ground state of their respective lattice sites, inviting the implementation of a Maxwell's demon to assemble low-entropy many-body states. Single-site-resolved imaging of fermions enables the direct observation of magnetic order, time-resolved measurements of the spread of particle correlations, and the detection of many-fermion entanglement.
This thesis describes the methods used to achieve single-atom and single-site resolved fluorescence imaging of a quantum gas of fermionic atoms held in an optical lattice. This kind of quantum gas microscopy has been previously applied to bosonic atoms in two experiments, and has allowed for extensive studies of many-body quantum systems. Here we detail methods to extend the techniques of quantum gas microscopy to fermionic species of atoms, opening the door to quantum simulation of electronic models of condensed matter physics. We prepare quantum degenerate gases of fermionic 40K through sympathetic cooling with a gas of \Rb. The gas prepared is trapped less than 1 mm away from a thin vacuum window, an experimental geometry which permits interrogation with a large Numerical Aperture microscope objective. The cloud is loaded into a 527 nm-period cubic optical lattice, ideal for quantum simulation of many-body models of fermionic particles such as the Hubbard model. The optical lattice is designed to allow for potential depths up to V/kB = 250 microKelvin, sufficient to strongly confine 40K atoms into individual lattice sites. EIT cooling --- a technique previously demonstrated in ion-trapping experiments --- is used to cool the fermionic atoms deeply towards the ground motional state of the lattice wells. We collect the photons scattered during continuous application of EIT cooling, while atoms are kept pinned in the lattice for many seconds. We strongly suppress all other sources of light with the use of a modulated cooling scheme and a spinning chopper wheel. Collecting the scattered light produced during 2 s of EIT cooling allows us to resolve single atoms in a fluorescence image. We demonstrate that the high resolution of our imaging apparatus also permits atom positions to be precisely identified on the length scale of the optical lattice. Thus we demonstrate the realisation of a quantum gas microscope for fermionic atoms, allowing for precise investigation of the ground states and dynamics of correlated quantum states of fermionic particles.
We demonstrate site-resolved imaging of individual bosonic 174Yb atoms in aHubbard-regime twodimensional optical lattice with a short lattice constant of 266 nm. To suppress the heating by probe light with the 1S0- 1P1 transition of the wavelength λ = 399 nmfor high-resolution imaging and preserve atoms at the same lattice sites during the fluorescence imaging, we simultaneously cool atoms by additionally applying narrow-line optical molasses with the 1S0 3P1 transition of the wavelength λ = 556 nm.We achieve a lowtemperature of T = 7.4(13) μK, corresponding to amean oscillationquantum number along the horizontal axes of 0.22(4) during the imaging process.Wedetect, on average, 200 fluorescence photons from a single atom within a 400 ms exposure time, and estimate a detection fidelity of 87(2)%. The realization of a quantum gas microscope with enough fidelity for Yb atoms in a Hubbard-regime optical lattice opens up the possibilities for studying various kinds of quantum many-body systems such as Bose and Fermi gases, and their mixtures, and also long-rangeinteracting systems such as Rydberg states.
We demonstrate site-resolved imaging of individual bosonic atoms in a Hubbard-regime two-dimensional optical lattice with a short lattice constant of 266 nm. To suppress the heating by probe light with the 1 S 0 – 1 P 1 transition of the wavelength λ = 399 nm for high-resolution imaging and preserve atoms at the same lattice sites during the fluorescence imaging, we simultaneously cool atoms by additionally applying narrow-line optical molasses with the 1 S 0 – 3 P 1 transition of the wavelength λ = 556 nm. We achieve a low temperature of , corresponding to a mean oscillation quantum number along the horizontal axes of 0.22(4) during the imaging process. We detect, on average, 200 fluorescence photons from a single atom within a 400 ms exposure time, and estimate a detection fidelity of 87(2)%. The realization of a quantum gas microscope with enough fidelity for Yb atoms in a Hubbard-regime optical lattice opens up the possibilities for studying various kinds of quantum many-body systems such as Bose and Fermi gases, and their mixtures, and also long-range-interacting systems such as Rydberg states.
Abstract The site-resolved detection of ultracold atoms in optical lattice potentials is a powerful technique to study lattice models of correlated quantum matter. In their recent paper, Yamamoto et al (2016 New J. Phys. 18 023016 ) demonstrate a quantum gas microscope for ultracold ytterbium atoms. By simultaneously cooling these atoms on two optical transitions, they show that fluorescent images of the lattice gas can be obtained while keeping the atoms pinned to their lattice sites even for a lattice spacing as small as 266 nm. This promises to be a powerful enabling tool for studies of metrology and quantum magnetism with quantum degenerate gases of ytterbium.