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arXiv:2502.04612 · Advanced Quantum Technologies

Blinking Optical Tweezers for Atom Rearrangements

K.Y. Kim, Kangheun Kim, Jaewook Ahn

Published Nov 11, 2025• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

ABSTRACT We introduce and experimentally demonstrate an energy‐efficient method for holding and rearranging an array of atoms using only optical tweezers. Our approach employs a single optical tweezer that sequentially releases and recaptures individual atoms. By applying a stroboscopic harmonic potential, we maintain the phase‐space quadrature of each atom's probability distribution during this “blinking” process, provided the trap frequency meets specific conditions. In our proof‐of‐concept experiments, we show that a blinking tweezer can hold atoms using just of the optical power per atom and further facilitate rearrangement atoms in various configurations. With further technical improvements, such as ground‐state cooling and correction for trap anharmonicities, this technique is expected to be scaled up to around atoms in our setup. This method provides a scalable and reconfigurable platform for optical tweezer arrays, with potential applications in assembling and manipulating large‐scale quantum systems.

DOI
10.1002/qute.202500531

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ABSTRACT We introduce and experimentally demonstrate an energy‐efficient method for holding and rearranging an array of atoms using only optical tweezers. Our approach employs a single optical tweezer that sequentially releases and recaptures individual atoms. By applying a stroboscopic harmonic potential, we maintain the phase‐space quadrature of each atom's probability distribution during this “blinking” process, provided the trap frequency meets specific conditions. In our proof‐of‐concept experiments, we show that a blinking tweezer can hold atoms using just of the optical power per atom and further facilitate rearrangement atoms in various configurations. With further technical improvements, such as ground‐state cooling and correction for trap anharmonicities, this technique is expected to be scaled up to around atoms in our setup. This method provides a scalable and reconfigurable platform for optical tweezer arrays, with potential applications in assembling and manipulating large‐scale quantum systems.
Arrays of single atoms trapped in optical tweezers have become a leading platform for quantum science and technology. A challenge at the frontier of the field is to scale up the number of atoms into the thousands. In addition, combining these arrays with a cryogenic environment would come with significant gains in lifetime and fidelity of quantum operations. This study successfully combines large-scale atomic arrays with a cryogenic environment, at a temperature of 6 K. The authors demonstrate the rearrangement of more than 800 atoms within a 2000-site array and discuss possible improvements of the setup, in a key step toward better, larger atom arrays for quantum technologies.
Abstract We outline an experimental setup for efficiently preparing a tweezer array of 88Sr atoms. Our setup uses permanent magnets to maintain a steady-state two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (MOT) which results in a loading rate of up to 108 s−1 at 5 mK for the three-dimensional blue MOT. This enables us to trap 2 × 106 88Sr atoms at 2 μK in a narrow-line red MOT with the 1S0 → 3P1 intercombination transition at 689 nm. With the Sisyphus cooling and pairwise loss processes, single atoms are trapped and imaged in 813 nm optical tweezers, exhibiting a lifetime of 2.5 min. We further investigate the survival fraction of a single atom in the tweezers and characterize the optical tweezer array using a release and recapture technique. Our experimental setup serves as an excellent reference for those engaged in experiments involving optical tweezer arrays, cold atom systems, and similar research.
Assembling and maintaining large arrays of individually addressable atoms is a key requirement for continued scaling of neutral-atom-based quantum computers and simulators. In this work, we demonstrate a new paradigm for assembly of atomic arrays, based on a synergistic combination of optical tweezers and cavity-enhanced optical lattices, and the incremental filling of a target array from a repetitively filled reservoir. In this protocol, the tweezers provide microscopic rearrangement of atoms, while the cavity-enhanced lattices enable the creation of large numbers of optical traps with sufficient depth for rapid low-loss imaging of atoms. We apply this protocol to demonstrate near-deterministic filling (99% per-site occupancy) of 1225-site arrays of optical traps. Because the reservoir is repeatedly filled with fresh atoms, the array can be maintained in a filled state indefinitely. We anticipate that this protocol will be compatible with mid-circuit reloading of atoms into a quantum processor, which will be a key capability for running large-scale error-corrected quantum computations whose durations exceed the lifetime of a single atom in the system. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Optical tweezer arrays of neutral atoms have emerged as a versatile and powerful platform for quantum simulation and quantum information processing. In this thesis, I present the realization of an experimental platform for quantum simulation based on individually trapped strontium atoms in optical tweezer arrays. The experiment combines precise laser cooling, optical control, and high-resolution imaging to enable the manipulation and high fidelity detection of single atoms. I developed and optimized a two-stage three-dimensional magneto-optical trap (3D-MOT) that produces cold and dense samples of strontium atoms from a thermal beam. In the f irst stage, atoms are captured and precooled using the dipole-allowed 1S0 → 1P1 transition at 461nm (which has a linewidth of !=2ω ↑ 32MHz). The second stage employs the 1S0 → 3P1 narrow intercombination transition at 689nm (with a linewidth of !=2ω ↑7.5kHz) to further cool and compress the atomic cloud. By optimizing the trapping parameters, I achieved clouds with temperatures around 5μK and densities above 1010cm→3, providing ideal initial conditions for e!cient loading into optical tweezers. A 3↑3 array of 360μK deep optical tweezers is generated by spatially modulating an 813.4nm laser beam using two crossed acousto-optic deflectors. The deflected beams are relayed and focused into the science chamber using a high–numericalaperture objective, which simultaneously serves as the collection optics for atomic f luorescence. The fluorescence light emitted by the atoms is imaged onto a scientific qCMOS camera, enabling site-resolved detection of individual atoms. I implemented and optimized the in-trap cooling dynamics to prevent atom loss during imaging and to minimize residual thermal motion. In addition, by precisely tuning lightassisted collisions, multiple atoms occupancies are removed from the traps and a single-atom regime is reached in the array, with a filling fraction of about 50%. I have demonstrated a single-atom detection fidelity of 99,986(1)% and a survival probability of 97(2)% between subsequent image acquisition, comparable to other current state-of-the-art experiments. To characterize the platform, I carried out release-and-recapture experiments, from which it is possible to measure a temperature for the individually trapped atoms of 12.95(5)μK. These results demonstrate the successful implementation of a robust and high-fidelity platform for optical trapping and imaging of single strontium atoms. The apparatus provides the foundation for future quantum simulation experiments with alkalineearth atoms excited to the Rydberg state, o"ering precise control over individual particles and the ability to scale towards larger, programmable atomic arrays.
We report on the trapping of single rubidium atoms in large arrays of optical tweezers comprising up to 2088 sites in a cryogenic environment at 6 K. Our approach relies on the use of microscope objectives that are in-vacuum but at room temperature, in combination with windowless thermal shields into which the objectives are protruding to ensure a cryogenic environment for the trapped atoms. To achieve enough optical power for efficient trapping, we combine two lasers at slightly different wavelengths. We discuss the performance and limitations of our design. Finally, we demonstrate atom-by-atom rearrangement of an 828-atom target array using moving optical tweezers controlled by a field-programmable gate array.
Assembling defect-free arrays of neutral atoms requires real-time rearrangement of stochastically loaded optical tweezers. Conventional rearrangement methods shuttle atoms sequentially, whereas high-speed spatial light modulators (SLMs) can move all atoms in parallel, which scales more favorably as the array size grows. For fast parallel rearrangement, the sequence of holograms displayed on the SLM should be computed more rapidly than the SLM refresh rate, and there should be phase continuity between successive holograms to minimize transient intensity fluctuations. We calculate holograms analytically by adding together the complex fields needed to produce each individual trap, and we ramp the phase of each trap linearly as it moves to its target location. Trap positions enter as continuous variables, rather than tied to points on a grid, so the method provides high positioning accuracy. Using a single GPU, we compute each intermediate hologram in 0.284 ms, considerably faster than the SLM refresh time of 0.696 ms, so the rearrangement speed is hardware-limited. In each step, we use the free processing time to iteratively optimize the holograms for equal intensity across the traps, decreasing trap non-uniformity to 1.24% during rearrangement at no cost in total time. Starting from an array of 256 sites loaded stochastically with 87^{87}87Rb atoms, we assemble a 100-atom array in under 20 ms with a rearrangement survival probability of 99.31(12)% per atom. This rearrangement increases the temperature of the atoms by 9(3) μμμK, which is small compared to the trap depth of 480 μμμK. Our method can also move individual atoms axially, enabling transport in different planes. We demonstrate this capability with a rearrangement protocol where one set of atoms leapfrogs over another.