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Towards Atom Assembly on Nanophotonic Structures with Optical Tweezers

Xingsheng Luan

Published Jun 1, 2020• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The integration of atomic physics and nanophotonics combines the best of two worlds. With atoms as the naturally existing qubits and nanophotonic devices as the engineered interaction medium, new frontiers can be explored for building novel quantum optical circuits for non-conventional quantum optics and exotic quantum many-body physics, as well as potentially serving as a fundamental building block for quantum computation and communication with neutral atoms. While important experimental milestones towards this goal have been reached, a grand challenge for experiments in this new field is the loading and trapping of atomic arrays with high fractional filling near complex nanophotonic structures. In this thesis, we have proposed a novel protocol for atom assembly on nanophotonic structures by integrating optical tweezer arrays and photonic crystal waveguides. This research is inspired by recent exciting progress in free-space atom assembly. However, different from the free-space counterpart, our new proposal should enable subwavelength atom arrays with complex patterns defined by precision nanofabrication. To demonstrate the basic principles behind this new proposal, we have designed and built an advanced apparatus with compact footprint that overcomes several significant experimental barriers in previous experiments. To achieve efficient atom delivery and assembly of arrays for more complex nanostructures, we have proposed a novel direct delivery scheme with optical tweezers by exploiting the rapid spatial variation of the Gouy phase of radial Laguerre-Gauss beams. With reduced dimension in the axial direction, the optical tweezer formed by supposed Laguerre-Gauss beams may find important applications in the communities of general atomic physics and super-resolution imaging. Finally, we have investigated the optomechanical properties of our nanophotonic devices for trapping atoms and evaluated potential heating mechanisms for trapped atoms. The studies presented in this thesis should provide important guidance to future atom-nanophotonic experiments.

DOI
10.7907/08q5-0w11

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The integration of atomic physics and nanophotonics combines the best of two worlds. With atoms as the naturally existing qubits and nanophotonic devices as the engineered interaction medium, new frontiers can be explored for building novel quantum optical circuits for non-conventional quantum optics and exotic quantum many-body physics, as well as potentially serving as a fundamental building block for quantum computation and communication with neutral atoms. While important experimental milestones towards this goal have been reached, a grand challenge for experiments in this new field is the loading and trapping of atomic arrays with high fractional filling near complex nanophotonic structures. In this thesis, we have proposed a novel protocol for atom assembly on nanophotonic structures by integrating optical tweezer arrays and photonic crystal waveguides. This research is inspired by recent exciting progress in free-space atom assembly. However, different from the free-space counterpart, our new proposal should enable subwavelength atom arrays with complex patterns defined by precision nanofabrication. To demonstrate the basic principles behind this new proposal, we have designed and built an advanced apparatus with compact footprint that overcomes several significant experimental barriers in previous experiments. To achieve efficient atom delivery and assembly of arrays for more complex nanostructures, we have proposed a novel direct delivery scheme with optical tweezers by exploiting the rapid spatial variation of the Gouy phase of radial Laguerre-Gauss beams. With reduced dimension in the axial direction, the optical tweezer formed by supposed Laguerre-Gauss beams may find important applications in the communities of general atomic physics and super-resolution imaging. Finally, we have investigated the optomechanical properties of our nanophotonic devices for trapping atoms and evaluated potential heating mechanisms for trapped atoms. The studies presented in this thesis should provide important guidance to future atom-nanophotonic experiments.
An exciting frontier in quantum information science is the integration of otherwise "simple" quantum elements into complex quantum networks. The laboratory realization of even small quantum networks enables the exploration of physical systems that have not heretofore existed in the natural world. Within this context, there is active research to achieve nanoscale quantum optical circuits, for which atoms are trapped near nano-scopic dielectric structures and "wired" together by photons propagating through the circuit elements. Single atoms and atomic ensembles endow quantum functionality for otherwise linear optical circuits and thereby enable the capability of building quantum networks component by component. Toward these goals, we have experimentally investigated three different systems, from conventional to rather exotic systems : free-space atomic ensembles, optical nano fibers, and photonics crystal waveguides. First, we demonstrate measurement-induced quadripartite entanglement among four quantum memories. Next, following the landmark realization of a nanofiber trap, we demonstrate the implementation of a state-insensitive, compensated nanofiber trap. Finally, we reach more exotic systems based on photonics crystal devices. Beyond conventional topologies of resonators and waveguides, new opportunities emerge from the powerful capabilities of dispersion and modal engineering in photonic crystal waveguides. We have implemented an integrated optical circuit with a photonics crystal waveguide capable of both trapping and interfacing atoms with guided photons, and have observed the collective effect, superradiance, mediated by the guided photons. These advances provide an important capability for engineered light-matter interactions, enabling explorations of novel quantum transport and quantum many-body phenomena.
Platforms consisting of neutral atoms individually trapped in arrays of optical tweezers have achieved important milestones in quantum simulation and quantum computation. With access to programmable Rydberg interactions, individual qubit control, long coherence times, and naturally identical qubit transitions, neutral atoms are a promising building-block for the use in future quantum machines. However, they face the same challenge as other quantum platforms in scaling the number of qubits needed to perform algorithms with a provable advantage over classical computers. An avenue toward scaling systems of neutral atoms may be to use a quantum network that connects individual systems to construct a distributed computing architecture. Key to this approach is for the atoms to have access to an efficient optical interface, where the quantum information can be mapped to a single photon and sent across a quantum network. This thesis explores using a nanophotonic crystal cavity to act as this interface. With our device, we have demonstrated high-cooperativity coupling of two atoms to the photonic mode, generated entanglement at the device using a projective measurement, and coherently transported an entangled pair of atoms away from the device. Furthermore, we have taken the first steps toward integrating this device with Rydberg-excited atoms. We have found that the nanoscale dielectric device creates a point-charge electric field that minimally perturbs ground-Rydberg qubit coherence at distances greater than 200 microns. Using the Rydberg blockade effect, we have created an entangled pair of atoms to perform entanglement-assisted sensing of the electric field to better understand its control. Overall, these experiments show how this nanophotonic device is a promising candidate to use as an optical interface for a Rydberg atom-based quantum computing node.
Arrays of neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers have emerged as a leading platform for quantum information processing and quantum simulation due to their scalability, reconfigurable connectivity, and high-fidelity operations. Individual atoms are promising candidates for quantum networking due to their capability to emit indistinguishable photons that are entangled with their internal atomic states. Integrating atom arrays with photonic interfaces would enable distributed architectures in which nodes hosting many processing qubits could be efficiently linked together via the distribution of remote entanglement. However, many atom array techniques cease to work in close proximity to photonic interfaces, with atom detection via standard fluorescence imaging presenting a major challenge due to scattering from nearby photonic devices. Here, we demonstrate an architecture that combines atom arrays with up to 64 optical tweezers and a millimeter-scale photonic chip hosting more than 100 nanophotonic cavities. We achieve high-fidelity ( ~ 99.2%), background-free imaging in close proximity to nanofabricated cavities using a multichromatic excitation and detection scheme. The atoms can be imaged while trapped a few hundred nanometers above the dielectric surface, which we verify using Stark shift measurements of the modified trapping potential. Finally, we rearrange atoms into defect-free arrays and load them simultaneously onto the same or multiple devices.
Trapped atoms near nanophotonics form an exciting platform for bottom-up synthesis of strongly interacting quantum matter. The ability to induce tunable long-range atom-atom interactions with photons presents an opportunity to explore many-body physics and quantum optics. Here we implement a configurable optical tweezer array over a planar photonic circuit tailored for cold atom integration and control for trapping and high-fidelity imaging of one or more atoms in an array directly on a photonic structure. Using an optical conveyor belt formed by a moving optical lattice within a tweezer potential, we show that single atoms can be transported from a reservoir into close proximity of a photonic interface, potentially allowing for the synthesis of a defect-free atom-nanophotonic hybrid lattice. Our experimental platform can be integrated with generic planar photonic waveguides and resonators, promising a pathway towards on-chip many-body quantum optics and applications in quantum technology.
Realizing an efficient quantum optical interface for multi-qubit systems would enable their quantum network integration and the scaling-up of the qubit number via distributed quantum computing. This thesis presents the building blocks for integrating a quantum processor based on a Rydberg atom array with a nanophotonic cavity as an optical interface. In our approach, the integration would be achieved by coherently transporting tweezer-trapped atoms between the cavity near-field and free space. To that end, we first characterize the strong coupling between single photons and atoms enabled by the nanophotonic device. Two 87Rb atoms are trapped in optical tweezers and brought to the cavity near-field, while the cavity is probed in reflection. We observe Purcell enhancement and cavity-mediated interactions between the atoms, corresponding to a single atom cooperativity of C = 70 in the mode center. The qubits are encoded in atomic hyperfine ground states, which have good coherence properties even when the atoms are trapped in the cavity near-field. We create an atomic Bell state by pairing up the coherent manipulation of atomic qubits with a quantum nondemolition measurement, implemented via a single photon reflection from the cavity. Crucial to the integration, we show that single atom coherence and two-atom entanglement can be preserved as the atoms are moved away from the cavity. The nanophotonic dielectric surface can host charges which affect highly polarizable Rydberg states, and this influence is studied by measuring the n = 70 Rydberg state coherence at different distances from the cavity. Our measurements suggest that a Rydberg array may be placed ∼ 200 μm away from a nanophotonic device while retaining high quantum gate fidelities. Our methods can be applied to other atomic species and device geometries, paving the path to quantum networks of Rydberg array processors.