Trapping of Single Atoms in Metasurface Optical Tweezer Arrays

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation of large, highly uniform optical tweezer arrays with over 1000 traps using holographic metasurfaces, enabling scalable quantum atom manipulation.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel metasurface-based approach for trapping single atoms in large, arbitrary geometries with high uniformity and scalability, surpassing previous methods.

Findings

Realized 2D arrays with over 1000 trapped atoms.

Achieved trap spacings as small as 1.5 micrometers.

Demonstrated an array with 360,000 traps.

Abstract

Optical tweezer arrays have emerged as a key experimental platform for quantum computation, quantum simulation, and quantum metrology, enabling unprecedented levels of control over single atoms and molecules. However, existing tweezer platforms have fundamental limitations in array geometry, size, and scalability. Here we demonstrate the trapping of single strontium atoms in optical tweezer arrays generated via holographic metasurfaces. We realize two dimensional arrays with more than 1000 trapped atoms, arranged in arbitrary geometries with trap spacings as small as 1.5 um. The arrays have a high uniformity in terms of trap depth, trap frequency, and positional accuracy, rivaling or surpassing existing approaches. This is enabled by highly efficient holographic metasurfaces fabricated from high-refractive index materials, silicon-rich silicon nitride and titanium dioxide. Leveraging sub-micrometer pixel sizes and high pixel densities, our platform allows scaling far beyond current capabilities. As a demonstration, we realize an optical tweezer array with 360,000 traps. These advances will facilitate tweezer-array based quantum applications that require large system sizes.