Strobing Gentle Shapes Atomic Array

An optical tweezer array is a staple device for trapping and controlling the positions of atoms in quantum analysis functions. Interfering, counterpropagating lasers can carry out the same operate by creating “optical lattices.” The previous device suffers from having a possible that varies from web site to web site, limiting the flexibility of the atoms to maneuver round. The latter device creates uniform potentials however restricts the form to some predefined geometry. Now Zoe Yan of Princeton College and her colleagues present that they’ll create arbitrarily formed, reconfigurable 2D atom lattices with uniform potentials [1]. Such traps are fascinating for simulating quantum spin interactions in digital fashions and exploring the behaviors of atoms in programs with advanced topologies.

Yan and her colleagues create their atom arrays by sequentially including strains of atoms till the lattice is full. They load as much as 50 chilly lithium atoms into an optical tweezer. They then generate the primary line of their array utilizing a vibrating transducer, which might break up and deflect a single laser beam such that it turns right into a line of sunshine spots. Subsequent strains of the array are made with one other transducer, programmed to flash on and off like a strobe mild, with every line illuminated for a fraction of the strobe cycle. The result’s a time-averaged 2D entice potential, the place every web site is independently managed, overcoming the nonuniformity downside that earlier experiments with optical tweezer arrays skilled.

Utilizing their approach, the group has created rectangular, triangular, and octagonal-ring-shaped arrays of atoms, which they are saying could possibly be used to discover the behaviors of unique states of matter, akin to chiral spin liquids.

–Rachel Berkowitz

Rachel Berkowitz is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Journal primarily based in Vancouver, Canada.

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