Site-Resolved Imaging of Bosonic Mott Insulator of $^7$Li atoms

TL;DR

This paper reports the first site-resolved fluorescence imaging of a bosonic Mott insulator of $^7$Li atoms in an optical lattice, enabling detailed studies of quantum many-body phases.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate high-fidelity, site-resolved imaging of a $^7$Li bosonic Mott insulator using Raman sideband cooling and a novel lattice setup, advancing quantum simulation capabilities.

Findings

Over 95% imaging fidelity in an 80x80 lattice area.

Successful creation of a large, low-temperature Mott insulator with 2,000 atoms.

Achieved high photon collection rate enabling clear single-site resolution.

Abstract

We demonstrate a single-site and single-atom-resolved fluorescence imaging of a bosonic Mott insulator of $^7$Li atoms in an optical lattice. The fluorescence images are obtained by implementing Raman sideband cooling on a deep two-dimensional square lattice, where we collect scattered photons with a high numerical aperture objective lens. The square lattice is created by a folded retro-reflected beam configuration that can reach 2.5~mK lattice depth from a single laser source. The lattice beam is elliptically focused to have a large area with deep potential. On average 4,000 photons are collected per atom during 1~s of the Raman sideband cooling, and the imaging fidelity is over 95$\%$ in the central 80$\times$80 lattice sites. As a first step to study correlated quantum phases, we present the site-resolved imaging of a Mott insulator. Tuning the magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance, the scattering length can be increased to 680$a_B$, and we are able to produce a large-sized unity filling Mott insulator with 2,000 atoms at low temperature. Our work provides a stepping stone to further in-depth investigations of intriguing quantum many-body phases in optical lattices.