Microscopic Control and Detection of Ultracold Strontium in Optical-Tweezer Arrays

• Published in: Physical review. X Vol. 8; no. 4; p. 041054
• Main Authors: Norcia, M. A., Young, A. W., Kaufman, A. M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: College Park American Physical Society 28.12.2018
• Subjects: Accuracy; Arrays; Clockwork; Cooling; Electrons; Ground state; Numerical aperture; Optical transition; Quantum computing; Robustness (mathematics)
• ISSN: 2160-3308; 2160-3308
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041054

Optical tweezers provide a versatile platform for the manipulation and detection of single atoms. Here, we use optical tweezers to demonstrate a set of tools for the microscopic control of atomic strontium, which has two valence electrons. Compared to the single-valence-electron atoms typically used with tweezers, strontium has a more complex internal state structure with a variety of transition wavelengths and linewidths. We report single-atom loading into an array of subwavelength scale optical tweezers and light-shift-free control of a narrow-linewidth optical transition. We use this transition to perform three-dimensional ground-state cooling and to enable high-fidelity nondestructive imaging of single atoms on subwavelength spatial scales. These capabilities, combined with the rich internal structure of strontium, open new possibilities including tweezer-based metrology, new quantum computing architectures, and new paths to low-entropy many-body physics.