Narrow-line cooling and imaging of Ytterbium atoms in an optical tweezer array

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method for trapping, cooling, and imaging individual Ytterbium atoms in optical tweezer arrays using narrow-line transitions, achieving high detection fidelity and stochastic loading in a 144-site array, advancing quantum technologies.

Contribution

The authors develop a technique for trapping and imaging Ytterbium atoms in optical tweezers using narrow-line cooling, enabling high-fidelity detection and large-scale array assembly.

Findings

High atom detection fidelity achieved through narrow-line imaging.

Successful stochastic loading of 144-site tweezer array.

Observation of rare quantum jumps into and out of metastable states.

Abstract

Engineering controllable, strongly interacting many-body quantum systems is at the frontier of quantum simulation and quantum information processing. Arrays of laser-cooled neutral atoms in optical tweezers have emerged as a promising platform, because of their flexibility and the potential for strong interactions via Rydberg states. Existing neutral atom array experiments utilize alkali atoms, but alkaline-earth atoms offer many advantages in terms of coherence and control, and also open the door to new applications in precision measurement and timekeeping. In this work, we present a technique to trap individual alkaline-earth-like Ytterbium (Yb) atoms in optical tweezer arrays. The narrow $^1S_0$-$^3P_1$ intercombination line is used for both cooling and imaging in a magic-wavelength optical tweezer at 532 nm. The low Doppler temperature allows for imaging near the saturation intensity, resulting in a very high atom detection fidelity. We demonstrate the imaging fidelity concretely by observing rare ($<$ 1 in $10^4$ images) spontaneous quantum jumps into and out of a metastable state. We also demonstrate stochastic loading of atoms into a two-dimensional, 144-site tweezer array. This platform will enable advances in quantum information processing, quantum simulation and precision measurement. The demonstrated narrow-line Doppler imaging may also be applied in tweezer arrays or quantum gas microscopes using other atoms with similar transitions, such as Erbium and Dysprosium.