Three-Dimensional Trapping of Individual Rydberg Atoms in Ponderomotive Bottle Beam Traps

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Three-Dimensional Trapping of Individual Rydberg Atoms in Ponderomotive Bottle Beam Traps

D. Barredo, V. Lienhard, P. Scholl, S. de Léséleuc, T. Boulier, A. Browaeys, and T. Lahaye

Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 023201 – Published 16 January 2020

See Synopsis: Lightscape Traps Rydberg Atoms in the Dark

Abstract

We demonstrate three-dimensional trapping of individual Rydberg atoms in holographic optical bottle beam traps. Starting with cold, ground-state ${}^{87}{Rb}$ atoms held in standard optical tweezers, we excite them to $n S_{1 / 2}$ , $n P_{1 / 2}$ , or $n D_{3 / 2}$ Rydberg states and transfer them to a hollow trap at 850 nm. For principal quantum numbers $60 \leq n \leq 90$ , the measured trapping time coincides with the Rydberg state lifetime in a 300 K environment. We show that these traps are compatible with quantum information and simulation tasks by performing single qubit microwave Rabi flopping, as well as by measuring the interaction-induced, coherent spin-exchange dynamics between two trapped Rydberg atoms separated by $40 μ m$ . These results will find applications in the realization of high-fidelity quantum simulations and quantum logic operations with Rydberg atoms.

Received 10 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.023201

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic & molecular processes in external fields Cold atoms & matter waves Cooling & trapping

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Synopsis

Lightscape Traps Rydberg Atoms in the Dark

Published 16 January 2020

A holographic technique confines excited Rydberg atoms in the central dark region of a 3D light-intensity pattern.

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Authors & Affiliations

D. Barredo , V. Lienhard, P. Scholl, S. de Léséleuc ^*, T. Boulier, A. Browaeys, and T. Lahaye

Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d’Optique Graduate School, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, 91127 Palaiseau Cedex, France

^*Present address: Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Myodaiji, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan.

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Issue

Vol. 124, Iss. 2 — 17 January 2020

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Images

Figure 1
Experimental setup. We use a spatial light modulator (SLM) and a high NA aspherical lens to generate a BOB trap for Rydberg atoms (blue beam, see text). The enlargement shows cuts of the reconstructed light intensity distribution near the focal plane, measured using an electrically tunable lens (not shown) to scan the images along the optical axis. To load the BOB trap, we use regular optical tweezers (red beam) created by light reflected from a second SLM and superimposed onto the BOB trap beam using a polarizing beam splitter.
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Figure 2
(a) Example of measured light intensity distribution near the focal plane. (b) Trapping potential for the $84 S_{1 / 2}$ Rydberg state calculated from Eq. (1) and the intensity distribution shown in (a). (c) Cuts of the trapping potential along $z = 0$ [dashed line in (b)] for different $n S_{1 / 2}$ Rydberg states. Schematics of the $60 S$ and $120 S$ Rydberg orbitals (to scale) are shown as insets.
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Figure 3
(a) Time sequence of the experiment. Ground-state atoms are initially loaded in optical tweezers. The tweezers are then switched off for Rydberg excitation. After $2 μ s$ the BOB trap is applied for a variable duration $τ$ . Following Rydberg deexcitation in free flight, the tweezers are switched on again and the atoms are imaged. As the BOB trap is strongly repulsive for ground-state atoms, only atoms that were in the Rydberg state before deexcitation are recaptured. (b) Recapture probability for atoms excited to the $84 S_{1 / 2}$ state as a function of the trapping time $τ$ (disks). The recapture curve in the absence of a BOB trap (squares) is shown for comparison. Error bars are the standard error of the mean.
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Figure 4
(a) Recapture probability of a $84 S_{1 / 2}$ Rydberg atom, as a function of the time spent in the BOB trap, showing a roughly exponential decay with lifetime $222 \pm 3 μ s$ (dashed line). The solid line is the result of a simulation without any adjustable parameter (see text). (b) Measured lifetimes of various $n S_{1 / 2}$ states; the dashed line is the theoretical value [46].
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Figure 5
(a) Rabi oscillation between the states $| ↑ ⟩ = | 82 D_{3 / 2}, m_{j} = 3 / 2 ⟩$ and $| ↓ ⟩ = | 83 P_{1 / 2}, m_{j} = 1 / 2 ⟩$ . The total trapping time is $50 μ s$ . (b) Excitation-hopping oscillations in the population of the pair states $| ↑ ↓ ⟩$ and $| ↓ ↑ ⟩$ , mediated by the dipole-dipole interaction between the Rydberg states $| ↑ ⟩$ and $| ↓ ⟩$ at a distance of $40 μ m$ . The temperature of the atoms is $\sim 3 μ K$ . Solid lines are damped sine fits to the data. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean and are most often smaller than the symbol size.
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