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Physical Review A

Alignment and optimization of optical tweezers on trapped ions

M. Mazzanti, Clara Robalo Pereira, N. A. Diepeveen, Bas Gerritsen, Zhenlin Wu, Z. E. D. Ackerman, L. P. H. Gallagher, Arghavan Safavi-Naini, R. Gerritsma, Rima X. Schüssler

Published Oct 8, 2024• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper presents a routine to align an optical tweezer on a single trapped ion and use the ion as a probe to characterize the tweezer. We find a smallest tweezer waist of $2.3(2)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\textmu{}\mathrm{m}$, which is in agreement with the theoretical minimal attainable waist of $2.5(2)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\textmu{}\mathrm{m}$ in our setup. We characterize the spatial dependence of the tweezer pattern in terms of its Rabi frequency on an optical transition in the ion. We find a peak Rabi frequency of $390(70)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$ in the center of the tweezer and a suppression factor of 19(3) in the immediate surrounding of the ion. We investigate the effects of optical forces and coherent population trapping on the ion. We show that the challenges posed by these forces can be overcome, and that the number of tweezers can be easily scaled up to reach several ions by using a spatial light modulator.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.110.043105

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This paper presents a routine to align an optical tweezer on a single trapped ion and use the ion as a probe to characterize the tweezer. We find a smallest tweezer waist of 2.3(2)\textmum2.3(2)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\textmu{}\mathrm{m}2.3(2)\textmum, which is in agreement with the theoretical minimal attainable waist of 2.5(2)\textmum2.5(2)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\textmu{}\mathrm{m}2.5(2)\textmum in our setup. We characterize the spatial dependence of the tweezer pattern in terms of its Rabi frequency on an optical transition in the ion. We find a peak Rabi frequency of 390(70)MHz390(70)\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}390(70)MHz in the center of the tweezer and a suppression factor of 19(3) in the immediate surrounding of the ion. We investigate the effects of optical forces and coherent population trapping on the ion. We show that the challenges posed by these forces can be overcome, and that the number of tweezers can be easily scaled up to reach several ions by using a spatial light modulator.
This paper presents a routine to align an optical tweezer on a single trapped ion and use the ion as a probe to characterize the tweezer. We find a smallest tweezer waist of 2.3(2) μ2.3(2)\,μ2.3(2)μm, which is in agreement with the theoretical minimal attainable waist of 2.5(2) μ2.5(2)\,μ2.5(2)μm in our setup. We characterize the spatial dependence of the tweezer Rabi frequency which is suppressed by a factor of 19(3) in the immediate surrounding of the ion. We investigate the effects of optical forces and coherent population trapping on the ion. Finally, we show that the challenges posed by these forces can be overcome, and that the number of tweezers can be easily scaled up to reach several ions by using a spatial light modulator.
The ability to program and control interactions provides the key to implementing large-scale quantum simulation and computation in trapped-ion systems. Adding optical tweezers, which can tune the phonon spectrum and thus modify the phonon-mediated spin-spin interaction, was recently proposed as a way of programing quantum simulators for a broader range of spin models [Arias Espinoza et al., Phys. Rev. A 104, 013302 (2021)]. In this work we study the robustness of our findings in the presence of experimental imperfections: micromotion, local stress, and intensity noise. We show that the effects of micromotion can be easily circumvented when designing and optimizing tweezer patterns to generate a target interaction. Furthermore, while local stress, whereby the tweezers apply small forces on individual ions, may appear to enable further tuning of the spin-spin interactions, any additional flexibility is negligible. We conclude that optical tweezers are a useful method for controlling interactions in trapped-ion quantum simulators in the presence of micromotion and imperfections in the tweezer alignment, but require intensity stabilization on the subpercent level.
Advances in research in fields such as quantum information and quantum chemistry require subtle methods for trapping particles, including ions, neutral atoms, and molecules. Here, we propose a hybrid ion-trapping method that combines a Paul trap with optical tweezers. This trap incorporates both the deep-potential characteristic of the Paul trap and the micromotion-free nature of the optical dipole trap. By modulating the optical dipole trap synchronously with the radio-frequency voltage of the Paul trap, the alternating electrical force in the trap center is fully counteracted, and the micromotion temperature of a cold trapped ion can reach the nanokelvin scale, while the trap depth exceeds 300 K. These features will allow cold collisions between an ion and an atom in the sss-wave regime and stably trap the produced molecular ion in the cold hybrid system. This provides a unique platform for probing the interactions between the ions and the surrounding neutral particles and enables the investigation of new reaction pathways and reaction products in the cold regime.
Abstract As it has been demonstrated that trapped ion systems have unmatched long-lived quantum-bit (qubit) coherence and can support high-fidelity quantum manipulations, how to scale up the system size becomes an inevitable task for practical purposes. In this work, we theoretically analyse the physical limitation of scalability with a trapped ion array, and propose a feasible scheme of architecture that in principle allows an arbitrary number of ion qubits, for which the overhead only scales linearly with the system size. This scheme relies on the combined ideas of a trap architecture of tunable size, stabilisation of an ion crystal by optical tweezers, and continuous sympathetic cooling without touching the stored information. We demonstrate that illumination of optical tweezers modifies the motional spectrum by effectively pinning the ions, lifting the frequencies of the motional ground modes. By doing so, we make the structure of the array less vulnerable from thermal excitations, and suppress the position fluctuations to insure faithful gate operations. Finally, we also explore the local behaviour of cooling when a sub-array is isolated by optical tweezers from other parts of the crystal.
Optical tweezer arrays trapping ultracold atoms and molecules are a versatile quantum science platform with broad impact in quantum simulation, quantum computation, and quantum metrology. The polarization dependence of anisotropic vector and tensor light shifts offers a degree of freedom for precise quantum state engineering of trapped particles. Similarly, state-selective operations depend on the polarization of the addressing light through the atom--light coupling strength. Yet, methods for controlling the polarization of individual tweezers or local addressing beams remain an experimental challenge. Here, we demonstrate independent, site-resolved linear polarization rotation across an optical tweezer array by exploiting the local birefringence tunability of a spatial light modulator. Applying this capability to an array of 88Sr^{88}\rm{Sr}88Sr atoms, we homogenize differential light shifts imparted by the 813-nm tweezers to the narrow 1S0↔3P1{^1{\rm S}_0}\leftrightarrow{^3{\rm P}_1}1S0​↔3P1​ transition, enabling sideband cooling under a magic-angle condition. Furthermore, we show dynamic transport of trapped atoms across distinct polarization zones with high survival and preserved coherence. Finally, we characterize tweezer polarization noise and demonstrate closed-loop stabilization referenced to the atomic transition frequency, reaching mrad-level stability. Our work establishes a technique for manipulating polarization-sensitive atomic and molecular transitions in tweezer architectures, with immediate applications to optical tweezer clocks and multi-zone quantum processors.