We demonstrate the defect-free assembly of versatile target patterns of up 111 neutral atoms, building on a 361-site subset of a micro-optical architecture that readily provides thousands of sites for single-atom quantum systems. By performing multiple assembly cycles in rapid succession, we drastically increase achievable structure sizes and success probabilities. We implement repeated target pattern reconstruction after atom loss and deterministic transport of partial atom clusters necessary for distributing entanglement in large-scale systems. This technique will propel assembled-atom architectures beyond the threshold of quantum advantage and into a regime with abundant applications in quantum sensing and metrology, Rydberg-state mediated quantum simulation, and error-corrected quantum computation.
We demonstrate the defect-free assembly of versatile target patterns of up 111 neutral atoms, building on a 361-site subset of a micro-optical architecture that readily provides thousands of sites for single-atom quantum systems. By performing multiple assembly cycles in rapid succession, we drastically increase achievable structure sizes and success probabilities. We implement repeated target pattern reconstruction after atom loss and deterministic transport of partial atom clusters necessary for distributing entanglement in large-scale systems. This technique will propel assembled-atom architectures beyond the threshold of quantum advantage and into a regime with abundant applications in quantum sensing and metrology, Rydberg-state mediated quantum simulation, and error-corrected quantum computation.
Low-entropy arrays of atomic quantum systems in optical tweezers offer unique prospects for fundamental research on few- and many-body systems as well as for extended applications in quantum technology. The significance of this approach relies on the achievable system size, its uniformity, and the rate of qubit allocation. We propel the neutral-atom quantum-technology platform by the rapid assembly of a regular two-dimensional quantum register of up to 1024 atomic qubits, enabled by a novel implementation of intensity-homogenized tweezer arrays and parallelized atom transport. Our highly efficient microoptical architecture modularizes intensity equalization and tweezer patterning in separate functional units, eliminating restrictions that arise for high-power, high-resolution, and large-scale light-field control within a single device. Arrays of precise grid structure, trap depth, and vibrational frequency with more than 3500 sites are demonstrated. Individual sites are interconnected by up to 50 parallelized transport tweezers with intensity and position control in real-time for swift qubit relocation. Multi-tweezer transport enables the operation of target patterns of up to 32 x 32 sites with sustained near-unity filling fraction. These results boost neutral-atom quantum information science above the kiloqubit level.
We report on the realization of a large-scale quantum-processing architecture surpassing the tier of 1000 atomic qubits. By tiling multiple microlens-generated tweezer arrays, each operated by an independent laser source, we can eliminate laser-power limitations in the number of allocatable qubits. Already with two separate arrays, we implement combined 2D configurations of 3000 qubit sites with a mean number of 1167(46) single-atom quantum systems. The transfer of atoms between the two arrays is achieved with high efficiency. Thus, supercharging one array designated as the quantum processing unit with atoms from the secondary array significantly increases the number of qubits and the initial filling fraction. This drastically enlarges attainable qubit cluster sizes and success probabilities allowing us to demonstrate the defect-free assembly of clusters of up to 441 qubits with persistent stabilization at a near-unity filling fraction over tens of detection cycles. The presented method substantiates neutral atom quantum information science by facilitating configurable geometries of highly scalable quantum registers with immediate application in Rydberg-state-mediated quantum simulation, fault-tolerant universal quantum computation, quantum sensing, and quantum metrology.
Neutral atoms trapped and manipulated by laser light provide experimentally well accessible quantum systems allowing for a high degree of control over external and internal degrees of freedom. Arrays of dipole traps in which the atoms are confined individually in a configurable geometry constitute a versatile platform for quantum simulation and information applications. By exciting these atoms into Rydberg states, interactions of variable strength and range can be introduced into the system, allowing for the implementation of entangling gate operations or spin Hamiltonians. A crucial requirement for these schemes to function in a reliable way is the ability to create defect-free arrays of single atoms. This is generally a challenge in these types of systems, as common atom loading schemes are limited to roughly 50% probability of filling each site. In this work, a technique for the rearrangement of atoms within a scalable architecture based on micro-optical lens arrays was developed and implemented, resulting in the creation of uniformly filled regions containing more than 100 atoms, which represent the largest defect-free structures realized so far in systems of this kind. This was accomplished by filling the empty traps in a pre-defined pattern with an atom one by one using an optical tweezer. Thus, structures with up to 5 x 5 atoms could be rendered defect-free in more than 99% of attempts. Although the success rate drops below unity for larger clusters, a value of 3.1% for a 100-atom structure is still viable for experiments working with post-selection methods. The filling fraction of even the largest examined structures was observed to be higher than 88%, surpassing common loading schemes by a significant margin. The measurements presented in this thesis build on a region of the array containing 361 sites, being limited by available laser power. In contrast, the addressable range of the optical tweezer includes more than 1500 sites and microlens arrays with up to a million lenses are commercially available. By implementing coherent Rydberg excitation of this assembled atom array, significant progress toward a universal quantum computer or flexible quantum simulator has been made. Using a two-photon excitation scheme, coherent dynamics between the ground and Rydberg state could be observed simultaneously in a 5 x 5 region of the array, with two-photon Rabi frequencies on the order of Omega = 2Pi x 500kHz measured for a Rydberg laser beam waist of w_0,B = 18.7(10) µm. The choice of an appropriate Rydberg state and interatomic spacing led to the presence of strong nearest-neighbor interactions and allowed for the demonstration of the Rydberg blockade effect by observing a collective enhancement of the Rabi frequency consistent with the expected scaling ~ sqrt(N) as well as the suppression of multiple excitations. This mechanism represents the fundamental constituent of a two-qubit gate operation. The architecture introduced in this work offers a scalability unique among quantum simulation platforms and the presented results underpin its potential to propel the atom-optical approach for quantum information processing beyond the threshold of quantum supremacy. Different approaches for scaling up the system have been explored, indicating that defect-free structures of more than 1000 atoms are within range with feasible experimental improvements. Through a detailed analysis of the factors limiting the coherence of the observed dynamics, strategies for future experimental improvements have been developed. Among these, increasing the coupling strength to the Rydberg state into the megahertz regime by increasing laser power and implementing single-site addressing represents the most straight-forward and promising approach.
Neutral-atom quantum computers encode qubits in individually trapped atoms arranged in optical lattices. Achieving defect-free atom configurations is essential for high-fidelity quantum gates and scalable error correction, yet stochastic loading and atom loss during rearrangement hinder reliable large-scale assembly. This work presents ATLAS, an open-source atom transport algorithm that efficiently converts a randomly loaded W×W lattice into a defect-free L×L subarray while accounting for realistic physical constraints, including finite acceleration, transfer time, and per-move loss probability. In the planning phase, optimal batches of parallel moves are computed on a lossless virtual array; during execution, these moves are replayed under probabilistic atom loss to maximize the expected number of retained atoms. Monte Carlo simulations across lattice sizes W=10--100, loading probabilities pocc=0.5--0.9, and loss rates ploss=0--0.05 demonstrate fill rates above 99% within six iterations and over 90% atom retention at low loss. The algorithm achieves sublinear move scaling (∝M0.55) and linear growth of required initial size with target dimension, outperforming prior methods in robustness and scalability -- offering a practical path toward larger neutral-atom quantum arrays.
Assembling increasingly larger-scale defect-free optical-tweezer-trapped atom arrays is essential for quantum computation and quantum simulations based on atoms. Here, we propose an AI-enabled, rapid, constant-time-overhead rearrangement protocol, and we experimentally assemble defect-free 2D and 3D atom arrays with up to 2024 atoms with a constant-time cost of 60 ms. The AI model calculates the holograms for real-time atom rearrangement. With precise controls over both position and phase, a high-speed spatial light modulator moves all the atoms simultaneously. This protocol can be readily used to generate defect-free arrays of tens of thousands of atoms with current technologies and become a useful toolbox for quantum error correction.
Defect-free single atom array in optical tweezers is a promising platform for scalable quantum computing, quantum simulation, and quantum metrology. Extending single-species array to mixed-species one promise to offer new possibilities. In our recent proof of principle realization of defect-free two-dimensional assembly of mixed-species 85Rb (87Rb) atom arrays [C. Sheng et al.\href{https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.083202}{{\color{blue} Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 083202(2022)}}], the filling fractions were limited by the imperfect transfer of atoms and the occurrence of logjams during the atom rearrangement. In order to scale up the size of defect-free mixed-species atom array, we scale up the tweezer array and improve the atom transfer, and upgrade the heuristic heteronuclear algorithm so as to facilitate multiple rearrangement cycles. Consequently, we successfully create defect-free atom arrays with 120 mixed-species single atoms. The corresponding filling fraction and defect-free probability are improved to be 98.6(1)\% and 14(2)\%, respectively. It is anticipated that the enhanced algorithm can be extended to other combinations of atomic species, and this mixed-species atom array is readily for studies of many-body physics, quantum error correction, and quantum metrology.