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Optics Express

Three-dimensional rearrangement of single atoms using actively controlled optical microtraps

Woojun Lee, Hyosub Kim, Jaewook Ahn

Published Apr 27, 2016• 78 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Rb atoms in optical microtraps actively controlled by a spatial light modulator, we demonstrate various dynamic rearrangements of up to N = 9 atoms including rotation, 2D vacancy filling, guiding, compactification, and 3D shuffling. With the capability of a phase-only Fourier mask to generate arbitrary shapes of the holographic microtraps, it was possible to place single atoms at arbitrary geometries of a few μm size and even continuously reconfigure them by conveying each atom. For this purpose, we loaded a series of computer-generated phase masks in the full frame rate of 60 Hz of the spatial light modulator, so the animation of phase mask transformed the holographic microtraps in real time, driving each atom along the assigned trajectory. Possible applications of this method of transformation of single atoms include preparation of scalable quantum platforms for quantum computation, quantum simulation, and quantum many-body physics.

DOI
10.1364/oe.24.009816

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Rb atoms in optical microtraps actively controlled by a spatial light modulator, we demonstrate various dynamic rearrangements of up to N = 9 atoms including rotation, 2D vacancy filling, guiding, compactification, and 3D shuffling. With the capability of a phase-only Fourier mask to generate arbitrary shapes of the holographic microtraps, it was possible to place single atoms at arbitrary geometries of a few μm size and even continuously reconfigure them by conveying each atom. For this purpose, we loaded a series of computer-generated phase masks in the full frame rate of 60 Hz of the spatial light modulator, so the animation of phase mask transformed the holographic microtraps in real time, driving each atom along the assigned trajectory. Possible applications of this method of transformation of single atoms include preparation of scalable quantum platforms for quantum computation, quantum simulation, and quantum many-body physics.
Establishing a reliable method to form scalable neutral-atom platforms is an essential cornerstone for quantum computation, quantum simulation and quantum many-body physics. Here we demonstrate a real-time transport of single atoms using holographic microtraps controlled by a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. For this, an analytical design approach to flicker-free microtrap movement is devised and cold rubidium atoms are simultaneously rearranged with 2N motional degrees of freedom, representing unprecedented space controllability. We also accomplish an in situ feedback control for single-atom rearrangements with the high success rate of 99% for up to 10 μm translation. We hope this proof-of-principle demonstration of high-fidelity atom-array preparations will be useful for deterministic loading of N single atoms, especially on arbitrary lattice locations, and also for real-time qubit shuttling in high-dimensional quantum computing architectures.
The ability to assemble and reconfigure individual atoms is central to performing quantum science using optical tweezer arrays. Here, we demonstrate parallel omnidirectional atom transport and rearrangement using dynamic holograms generated by a single kilohertz-rate spatial light modulator. By carefully characterizing survival and heating, we show that atoms remain confined even when successive holograms are commanded before the liquid crystal has settled, enabling significantly faster transport. To generate holograms in real time, we develop and implement a warm-start, weighted Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm that achieves performance comparable to neural-network methods without requiring any training. Combining these techniques, we assemble ytterbium atoms into a 2078-site kagome lattice with 99.0% mean filling. In addition, we demonstrate parallel transport between array layers, combining axial and transverse motion to reconfigure atoms in three dimensions. Our approach is readily adaptable to existing tweezer platforms and provides a method for large-scale SLM-based atom assembly as well as programmable three-dimensional control.
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.