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arXiv:2505.10092 · Physical Review Letters

Generation of Motional Squeezed States for Neutral Atoms in Optical Tweezers

Vincent Lienhard, Romain Martin, Yuki Torii Chew, Takafumi Tomita, Kenji Ohmori, Sylvain de Léséleuc

Published Nov 25, 2025• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Optical tweezers are a powerful tool for the precise positioning of a variety of small objects, including single neutral atoms. Once trapped, atoms can be cooled to the motional ground state of the tweezers. For a more advanced control of their spatial wave function, we report here a simple method to squeeze their motion, and the protocol to measure the squeezing factor based on momentum spreading estimation. We explore the limitations set by the technical imperfections of the tweezers, as well as the more fundamental limit set by their anharmonicity, and finally demonstrate a squeezing of 5.4 dB. The implementation of motional squeezing allows us to push back the limit set by the position quantum noise and thus to explore more extreme situations requiring atoms positioned with nanometric precision.

DOI
10.1103/3kwz-ny2h

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Optical tweezers are a powerful tool for the precise positioning of a variety of small objects, including single neutral atoms. Once trapped, atoms can be cooled to the motional ground state of the tweezers. For a more advanced control of their spatial wave function, we report here a simple method to squeeze their motion, and the protocol to measure the squeezing factor based on momentum spreading estimation. We explore the limitations set by the technical imperfections of the tweezers, as well as the more fundamental limit set by their anharmonicity, and finally demonstrate a squeezing of 5.4 dB. The implementation of motional squeezing allows us to push back the limit set by the position quantum noise and thus to explore more extreme situations requiring atoms positioned with nanometric precision.
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Neutral atoms trapped in microscopic optical tweezers have emerged as a growing platform for quantum science. Achieving homogeneity over the tweezers array is an important technical requirement, and our research focuses on improving it for holographic arrays generated with a spatial light modulator. We present a series of optimization methods to calculate better holograms, fueled by precise measurement schemes. These innovations enable to achieve intensity homogeneity with a relative standard deviation of 0.3%, shape variations below 0.5%, and positioning errors within 70 nm. Such ultraprecise holographic optical tweezers arrays allow for the most demanding applications in quantum science with atomic arrays.
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Microscopically controlled neutral atoms in optical tweezers and lattices have led to exciting advances in the study of quantum information and quantum many-body systems. The light shifts of atomic levels from the trapping potential in these systems can result in detrimental effects such as fluctuating dipole force heating, inhomogeneous detunings, and inhibition of laser cooling, which limits the atomic species that can be manipulated. In particular, these light shifts can be large enough to prevent loading into optical tweezers directly from a magneto-optical trap. We implement a general solution to these limitations by loading, as well as cooling and imaging the atoms with temporally alternating beams, and present an analysis of the role of heating and required cooling for single atom tweezer loading. Because this technique does not depend on any specific spectral properties, it should enable the optical tweezer platform to be extended to nearly any atomic or molecular species that can be laser cooled and optically trapped.