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Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems

Passive optical intensity masks for two-dimensional two-species atom-trap arrays

Chengyu Fang, Jared A. Miles, Joseph D. Murphree, Martin Lichtman, Matthew Gillette, Michael Bergdolt, J. Goldwin, Sanket Deshpande, Sam A. Norrell, Preston Huft, David A. Czaplewski, Mikhail A. Kats, Mark E. Saffman

Published Oct 4, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the designs and the fabrication of optical intensity masks which enable trapping of two-dimensional arrays of cooled atoms of two atomic species, using single laser. Compared to previous realizations using active optical components, e.g., spatial light modulators, these passive optical masks reduce the complexity of neutral-atom experiments. The optical intensity masks are easily scalable to enable the trapping of large arrays of single atoms, enabling future applications in quantum sensing, networking, and computing.

DOI
10.1117/12.3028276

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We report the designs and the fabrication of optical intensity masks which enable trapping of two-dimensional arrays of cooled atoms of two atomic species, using single laser. Compared to previous realizations using active optical components, e.g., spatial light modulators, these passive optical masks reduce the complexity of neutral-atom experiments. The optical intensity masks are easily scalable to enable the trapping of large arrays of single atoms, enabling future applications in quantum sensing, networking, and computing.
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We present an approach for trapping cold atoms in a two-dimensional (2D) optical trap array generated with a 4f4f4f filtering scheme and custom transmission mask without any active device. The approach can be used to generate arrays of bright or dark traps, or both simultaneously with a single wavelength for forming two-species traps. We demonstrate the design by creating a 2D array of 1225 dark trap sites, where single Cs atoms are loaded into regions of near-zero intensity in an approximately Gaussian profile trap. Moreover, we demonstrate a simple solution to the problem of out-of-focus trapped atoms, which occurs due to the Talbot effect in periodic optical lattices. Using a high power yet low cost spectrally and spatially broadband laser, out-of-focus interference is mitigated, leading to near perfect removal of Talbot plane traps.
We demonstrate trapping of individual rubidium (Rb) and cesium (Cs) atoms in an interleaved array of bright tweezers and dark bottle-beam traps, using a microfabricated optical element illuminated by a single-laser beam and a 4 f system with spatial filtering. Our approach exploits the opposite-sign dynamic polarizabilities of Rb and Cs, ensuring that each species is exclusively trapped in either bright or dark sites. The passive optical mask creates optimal trap depths for both species using three transmittance levels while minimizing the optical phase difference, implemented using a variable-thickness absorbing layer of amorphous germanium. This trapping architecture achieves atom loading rates close to 50% while reducing system complexity compared to conventional methods using active optoelectronic components and/or multiple-laser wavelengths.
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