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Laser Physics Letters

Preparation of a single atom in an optical microtrap

Alicia V. Carpentier, Y. H. Fung, Pimonpan Sompet, Andrew J. Hilliard, Thad G Walker, Mikkel F. Andersen

Published Oct 22, 2013• 51 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate the use of light assisted collisions for the deterministic preparation of individual atoms in a microtrap. Blue detuned light is used in order to ensure that only one of the collision partners is lost from the trap. We obtain a 91% loading efficiency of single 85 Rb atoms. This can be achieved within a total preparation time of 542 ms. A numerical model of the process quantitatively agrees with the experiment giving an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the process and allowing us to identify the factors that still limit the loading efficiency. The fast loading time in combination with the high efficiency may be sufficient for loading quantum registers at the size required for competitive quantum computing.

DOI
10.1088/1612-2011/10/12/125501

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We investigate the use of light assisted collisions for the deterministic preparation of individual atoms in a microtrap. Blue detuned light is used in order to ensure that only one of the collision partners is lost from the trap. We obtain a 91% loading efficiency of single 85 Rb atoms. This can be achieved within a total preparation time of 542 ms. A numerical model of the process quantitatively agrees with the experiment giving an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the process and allowing us to identify the factors that still limit the loading efficiency. The fast loading time in combination with the high efficiency may be sufficient for loading quantum registers at the size required for competitive quantum computing.
We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms is lost, implemented during loading, enables us to kick out one of the atoms as soon as a second atom enters the optical microtrap. When this happens faster than the pair loss, which has limited the loading efficiency of previous experiments to about 50%, we experimentally observe an enhancement to 80%. A simple analytical theory predicts the loading dynamics. Our results open up an efficient and fast route for loading individual atoms into optical tweezers and arrays of microtraps that are too tight for easy implementation of the method reported in [ 1 , 2 ]. The loading of tight traps with single atoms is a requirement for their applications in future experiments in quantum information processing and few-body physics.
We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms are lost, implemented during loading, enables us to kick out one of the atoms as soon as a second atom enters the optical microtrap. When this happens faster than the pair loss, which has limited the loading efficiency of previous experiments to about 50%, we experimentally observe an enhancement to 80%. A simple analytical theory predicts the loading dynamics. Our results opens up an efficient and fast route for loading individual atoms into optical tweezers and arrays of microtraps that are too tight for easy implementation of the method reported in [1,2]. The loading of tight traps with single atoms is a requirement for their applications in future experiments in quantum information processing and few-body physics.
We study the dynamics of atoms in optical traps when exposed to laser cooling light that induces light-assisted collisions. We experimentally prepare individual atom pairs and observe their evolution. Due to the simplicity of the system (just two atoms in a microtrap) we can directly simulate the pair's dynamics, thereby revealing detailed insight into it. We find that often only one of the collision partners gets expelled, similar to when using blue detuned light for inducing the collisions. This enhances schemes for using light-assisted collisions to prepare individual atoms and affects other applications as well.
We report the realization of a deterministic single-atom preparation by the method of all-optical feedback. Using a fast-real-time feedback, the light-induced atom desorption effect and blue detuned light-induced atom collision process can increase a success probability of single-atom preparation up to more than 99%. We investigate the dynamics of loading single atom trapped in a trap with a size of hundreds of micrometers into a pair of microscopic tweezers. The detailed experimental results show that the feedback loading is spatially insensitive, which implies that it is possible to use the feedback protocol to simultaneously implement the loading of large number of qubits arrays.
We review light assisted collisions in a high-density far-off resonant optical trap (FORT). By tuning the parameters of the light that induces the collisions, the effects of the collisions can be controlled. Trap loss can be suppressed even at high atomic densities, allowing us to count the atoms using fluorescence detection. When only two atoms are trapped, individual loss events reveal new information about the process, and the simplicity of the system allows for a numerical simulation of the dynamics. By optimizing the experimental parameters, we implement an efficient method to prepare single atoms in the FORT. Our methods can be extended to load quantum registers for quantum information processing.