Spatial tomography of individual atoms in a quantum gas microscope

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for three-dimensional localization of individual atoms in a quantum gas microscope, enabling extension of quantum simulation from 2D to 3D.

Contribution

A new technique for 3D spatial tomography of atoms in optical lattices using fluorescence imaging and objective translation.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated 3D atom position determination

Simulated images show high accuracy across varying filling fractions

Method extends quantum gas microscopy capabilities to three dimensions

Abstract

We demonstrate a method to determine the position of single atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Atoms are sparsely loaded from a far-off-resonant optical tweezer into a few vertical planes of a cubic optical lattice positioned near a high-resolution microscope objective. In a single realization of the experiment, we pin the atoms in deep lattices and then acquire multiple fluorescence images with single-site resolution. The objective is translated between images, bringing different lattice planes of the lattice into focus. The applicability of our method is assessed using simulated fluorescence images, where the atomic filling fraction in the lattice is varied. This opens up the possibility of extending the domain of quantum simulation using quantum gas microscopes from two to three dimensions.