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arXiv:2604.08518 · Optics Express

Fresnel zone plates for reconfigurable atomic waveguides

A. M. Pike, A. Dorne, L. Pickering, Matt Jamieson, Iain MacCuish, Erling Riis, M. Y. H. Johnson, V. A. Henderson, P. F. Griffin, A. S. Arnold

Published Jun 23, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Fresnel zone plates (FZPs), with patterns of 1μm resolution and 10 8+ ‘pixels’, allow the formation of clean, diffraction-limited foci – but have a static phase profile. Spatial light modulators (SLMs) allow dynamic control of spatial beam intensity and phase – but are bulky and currently limited to roughly 10μm pixel sizes and 1 Mega-pixel formats. Here, we present a ‘best-of-both’ kind of FZP, scalable to rings orders of magnitude larger than those possible via direct SLM generation. It is equivalent to a plano-convex donut lens, whereby light’s local intensity and global phase at the FZP map directly onto the focal plane. The same FZP under different SLM illumination can generate: rings and arcs, double-rings, phase windings, and ring lattices (or dynamic combinations thereof). The smooth and adaptable near-field waveguide that this enables will be ideal for Sagnac interferometry with ultracold atoms.

DOI
10.1364/oe.597259

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We have simulated the optical properties of micro-fabricated Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) as an alternative to spatial light modulators for producing non-trivial light potentials to trap atoms within a lensless Fresnel arrangement. We show that binary (1 bit) FZPs with wavelength (1 μ m) spatial resolution consistently outperform kinoforms of spatial and phase resolution comparable to commercial SLMs in root mean square error comparisons, with FZP kinoforms demonstrating increasing improvement for complex target intensity distributions. Moreover, as sub-wavelength resolution microfabrication is possible, FZPs provide an exciting possibility for the creation of static cold-atom trapping potentials useful to atomtronics, interferometry, and the study of fundamental physics.
We optically assess Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) that are designed to guide cold atoms. Imaging of various ring patterns produced by the FZPs gives an average RMS error in the brightest part of the ring of 3% with respect to trap depth. This residue is attributed to the imaging system, incident beam shape and FZP manufacturing tolerances. Axial propagation of the potentials is presented experimentally and through numerical simulations, illustrating prospects for atom guiding without requiring light sheets.
Rapid and programmable shaping of light fields is central to modern microscopy, display technologies, optical communications and sensing, quantum engineering, and quantum information processing. Current wavefront shaping technologies face a fundamental dichotomy: liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulators (LCoS-SLMs) offer high pixel count but suffer from low refresh rates, while acousto-optic deflectors (AODs) provide moderate speed with restricted optical beam geometries. Though recent advances in photonic integrated circuits achieve fast switching, there is currently no tool that provides MHz-rate, continuous motion, and arbitrarily reconfigurable control over a set of diffraction-limited spots. Here we introduce a new class of spatial light modulator that provides both 2D pixel geometry and high speed. The device operates by encoding spatial information in frequency bins via a broadband optical phase modulator, and decoding them via a first-of-its-kind, high-resolution 2D spectrometer. The spectrometer, based on the architecture which we call the Re-Imaging Phased Array (RIPA), achieves its sensitivity through long path-lengths, enabled by intra-spectrometer re-imaging lens-guides. We demonstrate site-resolved optical pulsing with a 44(1)~ns rise time, corresponding to frame rates exceeding 10 million frames per second, as well as arbitrary, reconfigurable 2D addressing and multi-site operations, including asynchronous, independent beam motion, splitting, and recombination. Leveraging these tools opens new horizons in rapid optical manipulation of matter across science, from fast, scalable control that approaches the inertial and radiation limits of atoms in quantum processors, to dynamically programmable, microsecond-resolved illumination in microscopy and neuro-biological imaging.
We optically assess Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) that are designed to guide cold atoms. Imaging of various ring patterns produced by the FZPs gives an average RMS error in the brightest part of the ring of 3% with respect to trap depth. This residue is attributed to the imaging system, incident beam shape and FZP manufacturing tolerances. Axial propagation of the potentials is presented experimentally and through numerical simulations, illustrating prospects for atom guiding without requiring light sheets.