Optical techniques for Rydberg physics in lattice geometries

Abstract

We address the technical challenges when performing quantum information experiments with ultracold Rydberg atoms in lattice geometries. We discuss the following key aspects: (i) The coherent manipulation of atomic ground states, (ii) the coherent excitation of Rydberg states, and (iii) spatial addressing of individual lattice sites. We briefly review methods and solutions which have been successfully implemented, and give examples based on our experimental apparatus. This includes an optical phase-locked loop, an intensity and frequency stabilization setup for lasers, and a nematic liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. a

Quantum computing with atomic qubits and Rydberg interactions: progress and challenges

“…Neutral atoms are being intensively developed for studies of quantum simulation [14,15,16] and computation [17]. Aspects of quantum computation with trapped neutral atoms have been reviewed in [18,19,12,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27]. One vision for a neutral atom quantum computer as depicted in Fig.…”

“…The dominant experimental issues for Rydberg gates are finite temperature Doppler dephasing, laser noise and pointing stability, gate phases due to Stark shifts, spontaneous emission from the intermediate state in two-photon Rydberg excitation, and perturbations to Rydberg states due to background electric and magnetic fields. Many of these issues have been reviewed previously [18,12] as well as in a recent technical guide [26]. Here we give a brief update with an eye to what will be needed to reach a fidelity goal of F = 0.9999.…”

Medium-finesse optical cavity for the stabilization of Rydberg lasers

“…This is similar to the setup described in Ref. [26] by Naber et al where they employed a commercial cavity from Stable Laser Systems [27] for a similar purpose. Our experiment also bears resemblance to that of Löw et al described in Ref.…”

“…Ref. [26]). By using a design that combines two low-expansion glasses (ZERODUR ® and ULE ® [27]), the typical finesses and long-term drifts of their cavities are better than the design we are describing presently.…”

Electromagnetically induced transparency with Rydberg atoms across the Breit-Rabi regime

“…[32], with the addition that we use a sideband-locking scheme to stabilize the lasers to a high-finesse Fabry-Pérot cavity. This procedure yields laser linewidths of less than 10 kHz and precise control over the absolute laser frequency [33]. Scanning of the laser frequencies is done by varying the corresponding sideband locking frequencies.…”