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arXiv:2412.20261 · Science Advances

Interleaved dual-species arrays of single atoms using a passive optical element and one trapping laser

Chengyu Fang, Jared A. Miles, J. Goldwin, Martin Lichtman, Matthew Gillette, Michael Bergdolt, Sanket Deshpande, Sam A. Norrell, Preston Huft, Mikhail A. Kats, Mark E. Saffman

Published Jul 16, 2025• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We demonstrate trapping of individual rubidium (Rb) and cesium (Cs) atoms in an interleaved array of bright tweezers and dark bottle-beam traps, using a microfabricated optical element illuminated by a single-laser beam and a 4 f system with spatial filtering. Our approach exploits the opposite-sign dynamic polarizabilities of Rb and Cs, ensuring that each species is exclusively trapped in either bright or dark sites. The passive optical mask creates optimal trap depths for both species using three transmittance levels while minimizing the optical phase difference, implemented using a variable-thickness absorbing layer of amorphous germanium. This trapping architecture achieves atom loading rates close to 50% while reducing system complexity compared to conventional methods using active optoelectronic components and/or multiple-laser wavelengths.

DOI
10.1126/sciadv.adw4166

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We demonstrate trapping of individual rubidium (Rb) and cesium (Cs) atoms in an interleaved array of bright tweezers and dark bottle-beam traps, using a microfabricated optical element illuminated by a single-laser beam and a 4 f system with spatial filtering. Our approach exploits the opposite-sign dynamic polarizabilities of Rb and Cs, ensuring that each species is exclusively trapped in either bright or dark sites. The passive optical mask creates optimal trap depths for both species using three transmittance levels while minimizing the optical phase difference, implemented using a variable-thickness absorbing layer of amorphous germanium. This trapping architecture achieves atom loading rates close to 50% while reducing system complexity compared to conventional methods using active optoelectronic components and/or multiple-laser wavelengths.
We present an approach for trapping cold atoms in a two-dimensional (2D) optical trap array generated with a 4f4f4f filtering scheme and custom transmission mask without any active device. The approach can be used to generate arrays of bright or dark traps, or both simultaneously with a single wavelength for forming two-species traps. We demonstrate the design by creating a 2D array of 1225 dark trap sites, where single Cs atoms are loaded into regions of near-zero intensity in an approximately Gaussian profile trap. Moreover, we demonstrate a simple solution to the problem of out-of-focus trapped atoms, which occurs due to the Talbot effect in periodic optical lattices. Using a high power yet low cost spectrally and spatially broadband laser, out-of-focus interference is mitigated, leading to near perfect removal of Talbot plane traps.
We report the designs and the fabrication of optical intensity masks which enable trapping of two-dimensional arrays of cooled atoms of two atomic species, using single laser. Compared to previous realizations using active optical components, e.g., spatial light modulators, these passive optical masks reduce the complexity of neutral-atom experiments. The optical intensity masks are easily scalable to enable the trapping of large arrays of single atoms, enabling future applications in quantum sensing, networking, and computing.
Abstract We report the preparation of exactly one 87Rb atom and one 133Cs atom in the same optical tweezer as the essential first step towards the construction of a tweezer array of individually trapped 87Rb133Cs molecules. Through careful selection of the tweezer wavelengths, we show how to engineer species-selective trapping potentials suitable for high-fidelity preparation of Rb + Cs atom pairs. Using a wavelength of 814 nm to trap Rb and 938 nm to trap Cs, we achieve loading probabilities of 0.508(6) for Rb and 0.547(6) for Cs using standard red-detuned molasses cooling. Loading the traps sequentially yields exactly one Rb and one Cs atom in 28.4(6)% of experimental runs. Using a combination of an acousto-optic deflector and a piezo-controlled mirror to control the relative position of the tweezers, we merge the two tweezers, retaining the atom pair with a probability of 0.9 9 ( − 0.02 ) ( + 0.01 ) . We use this capability to study hyperfine-state-dependent collisions of Rb and Cs in the combined tweezer and compare the measured two-body loss rates with coupled-channel quantum scattering calculations.
Single atoms are promising candidates for physically implementing quantum bits, the fundamental unit of quantum information. We have built an apparatus for cooling, trapping and imaging single rubidium atoms in microscopic optical tweezers. The traps are formed from a tightly focused off-resonant laser beam, which traps atoms using the optical dipole force. The traps have a diameter of ~1 μm and a depth of ~1 mK. The novelty of our approach is the use a digital mirror device (DMD) to generate multiple independently movable tweezers from a single laser beam. The DMD consists of an array of micro-mirrors that can be switched on and off, thus acting as a binary amplitude modulator. We use the DMD to imprint a computer-generated hologram on the laser beam, which is converted in to the desired arrangement of traps in the focal plane of a lens. We have developed fast algorithms for calculating binary holograms suitable for the DMD. In addition, we use this method to measure and correct for errors in the phase of the wavefront caused by optical aberrations, which is necessary for producing diffraction-limited focal spots. Using this apparatus, we have trapped arrays of up to 20 atoms with arbitrary geometrical arrangements. We exploit light-assisted collisions between atoms to ensure there is at most one atom per trapping site. We measure the temperature of the atoms in the traps to be 12 μK, and their lifetime to be 1.4 s. Finally, we demonstrate the ability to select individual atoms from an array and transport them over a distance of 14μm with laser cooling, and 5 μm without.
We have developed a dual-species optical tweezer array apparatus combining 87Rb^{87}\text{Rb}87Rb and 174Yb^{174}\text{Yb}174Yb atoms with a permanent hybrid Twyman-Green--Fizeau interferometer, which provides precision co-alignment of two opposing 0.6-numerical aperture (NA) objectives and the high NA beams that pass through the system. This technique is extensible to other tweezer platforms operating at high numerical aperture across widely-separated wavelengths. Here we present simultaneous trapping and single-site resolved imaging of both species in co-aligned tweezer arrays with 87Rb^{87}\text{Rb}87Rb confined at 840 nm840\ \rm{nm}840 nm and 174Yb^{174}\text{Yb}174Yb at 532 nm532\ \rm{nm}532 nm. The platform provides a foundation for hybrid quantum register operation, including mid-circuit measurements and asymmetric intra- and inter-species interactions, greatly expanding the capabilities of neutral atom arrays.