A Quantum Gas Microscope of Two-electron Atoms with Fluorescence and Faraday Imaging

Elmar Haller, James Hudson, Andrew Kelly +4 more

Melih Okan, Lawrence W. Cheuk, Matthew A. Nichols +3 more

Ryuta Yamamoto, Jun Kobayashi, Kohei Kato +3 more

We demonstrate a quantum gas microscope based on the Faraday effect that does not require a stochastic spontaneous emission process. We reveal the dispersive feature of this Faraday-imaging method by comparing the detuning dependence of the Faraday signal with that of the photon scattering rate. In addition, we determine the atom distribution through a deconvolution analysis, demonstrate absorption and dark-field Faraday imaging, and reveal the various shapes of the point spread functions for these methods, which are fully explained by a theoretical analysis. The results constitute an important first step toward ultimate quantum nondemolition site-resolved imaging and open the way to quantum feedback control of a quantum many-body system with single-site resolution.

Ottó Elíasson, Jens S. Laustsen, Robert Heck +4 more

We demonstrate a method to determine the position of single atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Atoms are sparsely loaded from a far-off-resonant optical tweezer into a few vertical planes of a cubic optical lattice positioned near a high-resolution microscope objective. In a single realization of the experiment, we pin the atoms in deep lattices and then acquire multiple fluorescence images with single-site resolution. The objective is translated between images, bringing different vertical planes of the lattice into focus. The applicability of our method is assessed using simulated fluorescence images where the atomic filling fraction in the lattice is varied. This opens up the possibility of extending the domain of quantum simulation using quantum gas microscopes from two to three dimensions.

Jonathon I. Gillen, Waseem Bakr, Amy Peng +2 more

Sandra Buob, Jonatan Höschele, Vasiliy Makhalov +2 more

The development of quantum-gas microscopes has brought novel ways of probing quantum degenerate many-body systems at the single-atom level. Until now, most of these setups have focused on alkali atoms. Expanding quantum-gas microscopy to alkaline-earth elements will provide new tools, such as SU( N )-symmetric fermionic isotopes or ultranarrow optical transitions, to the field of quantum simulation. Here we demonstrate the site-resolved imaging of a 84 Sr bosonic quantum gas in a Hubbard-regime optical lattice. The quantum gas is confined by a two-dimensional in-plane lattice and a light-sheet potential, which operate at the strontium clock-magic wavelength of 813.4 nm. We realize fluorescence imaging using the broad 461-nm transition, which provides high spatial resolution. Simultaneously, we perform attractive Sisyphus cooling with the narrow 689-nm intercombination line. We reconstruct the atomic occupation from the fluorescence images, obtaining imaging fidelities above 94 % . Finally, we realize a 84 Sr superfluid in the Bose-Hubbard regime. We observe its interference pattern upon expansion, a probe of phase coherence, with single-atom resolution. Our strontium quantum-gas microscope provides a new platform to study dissipative Hubbard models, quantum optics in atomic arrays, and SU( N ) fermions at the microscopic level. Published by the American Physical Society 2024