In collaboration with Ofer Firstenberg recently started a new joint project on efficient coupling of neutral-atom tweezer arrays to light. On the theoretical side we are collaborating with Efi Shahmoon. We plan to extend Efi’s original ideas for strong coupling in atomic arrays in sub-wavelength optical lattices (recently verified experimentally by Immanuel Bloch) to the emerging and promising field of quantum simulators with Rydberg atoms in tweezer arrays, where the spacing between the atoms is larger than the wavelength. The challenge to achieved strong coupling to light in such large-spacing arrays emerges from the existence of many diffraction orders that cannot be controlled.
Our proposed scheme to overcome this challenge is based on two supplementary efforts: first we will reduce the spacing between neighboring atoms in the array to <1.5 microns, by suppressing the mutual interferences that limit this distance to >3 microns in most state of the art demonstrations. Such spacing reduction will reduce the non-vanishing diffraction orders from the periodic array from many tens to only few. Next we will incorporate the tweezer array inside a medium finesse optical cavity that will enhance the zero diffraction order as compared to the others so as to ensure strong coupling to it.
We plan to achieve strong coupling to light, show efficient transfer of coherence and quantum states from the array onto a single radiation mode and then use it to demonstrate and study novel schemes for quantum simulators within the atomic tweezer array as well as quantum coupling between tweezer arrays for “scalable” quantum computer based on Rydberg induced gates.