Free-space lossless state-detection of a single trapped atom

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a lossless, high-fidelity, state-selective detection method for a single trapped rubidium atom using laser-induced fluorescence, enabling advanced quantum manipulation of neutral atoms.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, lossless detection technique for neutral atoms that achieves high fidelity, similar to methods used for trapped ions.

Findings

Detection fidelity of 98.6% achieved

Method is limited by detector dark counts

Applicable to quantum manipulation of neutral atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate the lossless state-selective detection of a single rubidium 87 atom trapped in an optical tweezer. This detection is analogous to the one used on trapped ions. After preparation in either a dark or bright state, we probe the atom internal state by sending laser light that couples an excited state to the bright state only. The laser induced fluorescence is collected by a high numerical aperture lens. The single-shot fidelity of the detection is 98.6(0.2) % and is presently limited by the dark count noise of the detector. The simplicity of this method opens new perspectives in view of applications to quantum manipulations of neutral atoms.