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arXiv:1506.01783

Efficient collisional blockade loading of single atom into a tight microtrap

Y. H. Fung, Mikkel F. Andersen

Published Jun 5, 2015• 1 citation
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Abstract

We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms are lost, implemented during loading, enables us to kick out one of the atoms as soon as a second atom enters the optical microtrap. When this happens faster than the pair loss, which has limited the loading efficiency of previous experiments to about 50%, we experimentally observe an enhancement to 80%. A simple analytical theory predicts the loading dynamics. Our results opens up an efficient and fast route for loading individual atoms into optical tweezers and arrays of microtraps that are too tight for easy implementation of the method reported in [1,2]. The loading of tight traps with single atoms is a requirement for their applications in future experiments in quantum information processing and few-body physics.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1506.01783

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We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms are lost, implemented during loading, enables us to kick out one of the atoms as soon as a second atom enters the optical microtrap. When this happens faster than the pair loss, which has limited the loading efficiency of previous experiments to about 50%, we experimentally observe an enhancement to 80%. A simple analytical theory predicts the loading dynamics. Our results opens up an efficient and fast route for loading individual atoms into optical tweezers and arrays of microtraps that are too tight for easy implementation of the method reported in [1,2]. The loading of tight traps with single atoms is a requirement for their applications in future experiments in quantum information processing and few-body physics.
We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms is lost, implemented during loading, enables us to kick out one of the atoms as soon as a second atom enters the optical microtrap. When this happens faster than the pair loss, which has limited the loading efficiency of previous experiments to about 50%, we experimentally observe an enhancement to 80%. A simple analytical theory predicts the loading dynamics. Our results open up an efficient and fast route for loading individual atoms into optical tweezers and arrays of microtraps that are too tight for easy implementation of the method reported in [ 1 , 2 ]. The loading of tight traps with single atoms is a requirement for their applications in future experiments in quantum information processing and few-body physics.
We investigate the use of light assisted collisions for the deterministic preparation of individual atoms in a microtrap. Blue detuned light is used in order to ensure that only one of the collision partners is lost from the trap. We obtain a 91% loading efficiency of single 85 Rb atoms. This can be achieved within a total preparation time of 542 ms. A numerical model of the process quantitatively agrees with the experiment giving an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the process and allowing us to identify the factors that still limit the loading efficiency. The fast loading time in combination with the high efficiency may be sufficient for loading quantum registers at the size required for competitive quantum computing.
We review light assisted collisions in a high-density far-off resonant optical trap (FORT). By tuning the parameters of the light that induces the collisions, the effects of the collisions can be controlled. Trap loss can be suppressed even at high atomic densities, allowing us to count the atoms using fluorescence detection. When only two atoms are trapped, individual loss events reveal new information about the process, and the simplicity of the system allows for a numerical simulation of the dynamics. By optimizing the experimental parameters, we implement an efficient method to prepare single atoms in the FORT. Our methods can be extended to load quantum registers for quantum information processing.
Continuously replenished optical tweezer arrays will unlock unlimited-depth quantum circuits with neutral atom qubits. A key bottleneck limiting the cycle time of these systems is removing atoms from tweezers initially loaded with more than one atom. In the conventional technique of light-assisted collisions, slow collisional dynamics limit the timescale for removing excess atoms to several milliseconds. Here, we propose and demonstrate a scheme for selectively removing one atom at a time from multiply occupied tweezers on a microsecond timescale, using intra-tweezer Rydberg blockade and autoionization. We demonstrate the protocol in 171^{171}171Yb in two complementary regimes. With two-photon Rydberg excitation from the ground state, we reduce multi-atom probability to 1% in 64.8 μμμs, while retaining single atoms in 58.2(2)% of the tweezers, which is comparable to the filling fraction achieved with light-assisted collisions under the same experimental conditions, but over two orders of magnitude faster. With single-photon excitation from the metastable state 3P0^3P_03P0​, reduced single-atom loss enables a higher filling fraction of 74.8(3)%, at the cost of additional temporal overhead to prepare the atoms in 3P0^3P_03P0​. The final filling fraction is limited by an unexplained two-body loss mechanism, which, if solved, could enable fast, quasi-deterministic loading.
Continuously replenished optical tweezer arrays will unlock unlimited-depth quantum circuits with neutral atom qubits. A key bottleneck limiting the cycle time of these systems is removing atoms from tweezers initially loaded with more than one atom. In the conventional technique of light-assisted collisions, slow collisional dynamics limit the timescale for removing excess atoms to several milliseconds. Here, we propose and demonstrate a scheme for selectively removing one atom at a time from multiply occupied tweezers on a microsecond timescale, using intra-tweezer Rydberg blockade and autoionization. We demonstrate the protocol in Yb 171 in two complementary regimes. With two-photon Rydberg excitation from the ground state, we reduce the multi-atom probability to 1% in 64.8 μ s , while retaining single atoms in 58.2 ( 2 ) % of the tweezers, which is comparable to the filling fraction achieved with light-assisted collisions under the same experimental conditions, but over two orders of magnitude faster. With single-photon excitation from the metastable state P 0 3 , reduced single-atom loss enables a higher filling fraction of 74.8 ( 3 ) % , at the cost of additional temporal overhead to prepare the atoms in P 0 3 . The final filling fraction is limited by an unexplained two-body loss mechanism, which, if solved, could enable fast, quasi-deterministic loading.