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arXiv:1810.08769 · Nature Communications

Trapping single atoms on a nanophotonic circuit with configurable tweezer lattices

May E. Kim, Tzu-Han Chang, Brian M. Fields, Cheng-An Chen, Chen-Lung Hung

Published Apr 9, 2019• 71 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Trapped atoms near nanophotonics form an exciting platform for bottom-up synthesis of strongly interacting quantum matter. The ability to induce tunable long-range atom-atom interactions with photons presents an opportunity to explore many-body physics and quantum optics. Here we implement a configurable optical tweezer array over a planar photonic circuit tailored for cold atom integration and control for trapping and high-fidelity imaging of one or more atoms in an array directly on a photonic structure. Using an optical conveyor belt formed by a moving optical lattice within a tweezer potential, we show that single atoms can be transported from a reservoir into close proximity of a photonic interface, potentially allowing for the synthesis of a defect-free atom-nanophotonic hybrid lattice. Our experimental platform can be integrated with generic planar photonic waveguides and resonators, promising a pathway towards on-chip many-body quantum optics and applications in quantum technology.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-019-09635-7

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APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Meeting Abstracts•Jan 1, 2019•0 citations
Trapped atoms near nanophotonics form an exciting platform for bottom-up synthesis of strongly interacting quantum matter. The ability to induce tunable long-range atom-atom interactions with photons presents an opportunity to explore many-body physics and quantum optics. Here we implement a configurable optical tweezer array over a planar photonic circuit tailored for cold atom integration and control for trapping and high-fidelity imaging of one or more atoms in an array directly on a photonic structure. Using an optical conveyor belt formed by a moving optical lattice within a tweezer potential, we show that single atoms can be transported from a reservoir into close proximity of a photonic interface, potentially allowing for the synthesis of a defect-free atom-nanophotonic hybrid lattice. Our experimental platform can be integrated with generic planar photonic waveguides and resonators, promising a pathway towards on-chip many-body quantum optics and applications in quantum technology.
Abstract Trapped atoms near nanophotonics form an exciting platform for bottom-up synthesis of strongly interacting quantum matter. The ability to induce tunable long-range atom-atom interactions with photons presents an opportunity to explore many-body physics and quantum optics. Here we implement a configurable optical tweezer array over a planar photonic circuit tailored for cold atom integration and control for trapping and high-fidelity imaging of one or more atoms in an array directly on a photonic structure. Using an optical conveyor belt formed by a moving optical lattice within a tweezer potential, we show that single atoms can be transported from a reservoir into close proximity of a photonic interface, potentially allowing for the synthesis of a defect-free atom-nanophotonic hybrid lattice. Our experimental platform can be integrated with generic planar photonic waveguides and resonators, promising a pathway towards on-chip many-body quantum optics and applications in quantum technology.
The integration of cold neutral atoms with nanophotonic circuits offers significant potential as a light–mater interface for a wide range of applications ranging from studies of fundamental physics and quantum many– body physics to quantum networks. Here, we describe the design and realization of a novel platform where an efficiently–coupled microring photonic circuit on a chip is integrated with a cold atom system. This platform is fully compatible with laser cooling and trapping atoms, which allows for direct loading of cold atoms into an optical tweezer lattice formed on the microring circuit. Realizing strong atom–light interaction requires localizing atoms within the near field region of a whispering-gallery mode in a microring resonator. To this end, we estimate the positions of trapped atoms and consider a scheme to transport them to the closest site from the surface. This scheme can also be used for preparing for an array of individually trapped atoms. Such a platform holds promises for realizing a robust and scalable light–mater interface operating at individual quanta.
Arrays of neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers have emerged as a leading platform for quantum information processing and quantum simulation due to their scalability, reconfigurable connectivity, and high-fidelity operations. Individual atoms are promising candidates for quantum networking due to their capability to emit indistinguishable photons that are entangled with their internal atomic states. Integrating atom arrays with photonic interfaces would enable distributed architectures in which nodes hosting many processing qubits could be efficiently linked together via the distribution of remote entanglement. However, many atom array techniques cease to work in close proximity to photonic interfaces, with atom detection via standard fluorescence imaging presenting a major challenge due to scattering from nearby photonic devices. Here, we demonstrate an architecture that combines atom arrays with up to 64 optical tweezers and a millimeter-scale photonic chip hosting more than 100 nanophotonic cavities. We achieve high-fidelity ( ~ 99.2%), background-free imaging in close proximity to nanofabricated cavities using a multichromatic excitation and detection scheme. The atoms can be imaged while trapped a few hundred nanometers above the dielectric surface, which we verify using Stark shift measurements of the modified trapping potential. Finally, we rearrange atoms into defect-free arrays and load them simultaneously onto the same or multiple devices.
The integration of cold neutral atoms with nanophotonic circuits offers significant potential as a light–matter interface for a wide range of applications ranging from fundamental studies in quantum optics, quantum many– body physics, quantum networks to even ultracold chemistry. Here, we describe the design and realization of a novel platform where an efficiently–coupled microring photonic circuit on a chip is integrated with a cold atom system. This platform is fully compatible with laser cooling and trapping atoms, which allows for direct loading of cold atoms in close vicinity of a microring circuit. We discuss our experimental scheme and efforts to prepare for an array of individually trapped atoms within the near field region of a whispering-gallery mode (WGM) in a microring resonator for realizing strong atom–light interactions. Beyond our original motivations in creating an atom-photon quantum interface, we also discuss a novel application – for direct photoassociation (PA) synthesis and quantum state detection of cold diatomic molecules without closed optical transitions. We estimate that the transfer efficiency to a molecular ground state and the subsequent state detection efficiency can approach unity with strong photon–molecule coupling that could be realized in our microring resonator circuit.
Interfacing cold atoms with nanophotonic waveguides and resonators promises stronger atom-light interactions and leads to new paradigms for quantum optics. Here, we demonstrate coupling single atoms to a nanophotonic whispering-gallery-mode resonator using two different methods. The first one is an optical guiding technique that makes use of diffracted light from a nanophotonic waveguide to direct cold atoms to the evanescent region of the resonator. The second one is an optical conveyor-belt consisting of a moving optical lattice for controlled delivery of trapped atoms. Our demonstration enables new applications with scalable light-matter interface based on cold atoms coupled to nanophotonic circuits.
Developing a hybrid platform that combines nanophotonic circuits and atomic physic may provide new chip-scale devices for quantum application or versatile tools for exploring photon-mediated long-range quantum systems. However, this challenging project demands the excellent integration of cold atom trapping and manipulation technology with cutting-edge nanophotonics circuit design and fabrication. In this thesis project, we aim to develop a novel suspended membrane platform that serves as a quantum interface between laser-cooled, trapped atoms in an ultrahigh vacuum and the photons guided in the nanophotonic circuits based on high-quality silicon nitride microring resonators fabricated on a transparent membrane substrate. The proposed platform meets the stringent performance requirements imposed by nanofabrication and optical physics in an ultra-high vacuum. These include a high yield rate for mm-scale suspended dielectric photonic devices, minimization of the surface roughness to achieve ultrahigh-optical quality, complete control of optical loss/in-coupling rate to achieve critical photon coupling to a microring resonator, and high-efficiency waveguide optical input/output coupler in an ultrahigh vacuum environment. This platform is compatible with laser-cooled and trapped cold atoms. The experimental demonstration of trapping and imaging single atoms on a photonic resonator circuit using optical tweezers has been demonstrated. Our circuit design can potentially reach a record-high cooperativity parameter C$>$500 for single atom-photon coupling, which is of high importance in realizing a coherent quantum nonlinear optical platform and holds great promise as an on-chip atom-cavity QED platform.