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Constructing a magneto-optical trap using transmissive metasurfaces

Wenqi Zhu, Lu Chen, Junyeob Song, Jinghui Yang, Okan Koksal, Zi Xin Wang, Andrew R. Ferdinand, Sindhu Jammi, Grisha Spektor, Scott B. Papp, Amit Kumar Agrawal

Published Jan 1, 2023• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We use metasurfaces to construct a six-beam magneto optical trap for neutral strontium atoms. The configuration consists of a polarization-multiplexed metasurface splitter and three topology-optimized metagratings, requiring only two input beams and no bulk optics.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_si.2023.sm2g.7

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Trapped neutral atoms are one of the leading platforms for quantum information technologies, in particular for quantum computing, but scaling them to array sizes needed for utility-scale quantum computing is a major engineering challenge. Here we review optical metasurfaces as an enabling technology that provides fine control over the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light, with pixel counts far exceeding what is available with spatial light modulators (SLMs) and other active devices. The large pixel counts have recently led to demonstrations of arrays of optical tweezers with hundreds of thousands of sites and arrays of optical bottle-beams with complex three-dimensional trapping profiles. The flexibility and scalability of optical metasurfaces provides a route towards miniaturized, integrated, and highly scalable atomic experiments and instruments.