Eliminating light shifts for single atom trapping

• Published in: New journal of physics Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 23007 - 23013
• Main Authors: Hutzler, Nicholas R, Liu, Lee R, Yu, Yichao, Ni, Kang-Kuen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 02-02-2017
• Subjects: atom cooling; atom trapping; Beams (radiation); Cooling; Dipoles; Laser beam heating; Laser cooling; Light levels; Neutral atoms; Optical lattices; Optical properties; optical trapping; optical tweezers; Physics; Quantum phenomena; single atoms; Trapping; Variation
• ISSN: 1367-2630; 1367-2630
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aa5a3b

Microscopically controlled neutral atoms in optical tweezers and lattices have led to exciting advances in the study of quantum information and quantum many-body systems. The light shifts of atomic levels from the trapping potential in these systems can result in detrimental effects such as fluctuating dipole force heating, inhomogeneous detunings, and inhibition of laser cooling, which limits the atomic species that can be manipulated. In particular, these light shifts can be large enough to prevent loading into optical tweezers directly from a magneto-optical trap. We implement a general solution to these limitations by loading, as well as cooling and imaging the atoms with temporally alternating beams, and present an analysis of the role of heating and required cooling for single atom tweezer loading. Because this technique does not depend on any specific spectral properties, it should enable the optical tweezer platform to be extended to nearly any atomic or molecular species that can be laser cooled and optically trapped.