TRAPPING LIGHT ALKALI ATOMS IN D1 MAGIC WAVELENGTH TWEEZERS FOR QUANTUM SIMULATION

Abstract

In this thesis, we demonstrate the successful trapping, cooling and imaging of single sodium atoms in D1 magic wavelength tweezers without the need for any modulation, leading to an order of magnitude increase in the scaling up of atom arrays when compared with the case where AC tweezers are used.

The demonstrated increased scaling up of the atom array make it attractive for us to pursue quantum simulation experiments. With this in mind, we pivot to inducing interactions by exciting the atoms to Rydberg states. We first coherently prepare its internal state using optical pumping before exciting it to a Rydberg state (n = 54 – 70) in a two-photon excitation process, allowing us to observe coherent Rabi oscillations between the ground and the Rydberg states. Positioning the atoms at different relative separations allowed us to introduce tunable long-range interactions between them and to observe the phenomenon of Rydberg blockade where simultaneous excitation of both atoms to Rydberg states is inhibited. These steps set the stage for performing large-scale quantum simulation and computation tasks with interacting atoms and with molecular arrays in the future.