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Paper   IPM / P / 17134
School of Physics
  Title:   Subnanometer confinement and bundling of atoms in a Rydberg empowered optical lattice
  Author(s):  M.S. Khazali
  Status:   Preprint
  Journal:
  Year:  2023
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
Optical lattices are the basic blocks of atomic quantum technology. The scale and resolution of these lattices are diffraction-limited to the light wavelength. Tight confinement of single sites in conventional lattices requires excessive laser intensity which in turn suppresses the coherence due to enhanced scattering. This article proposes a new scheme for atomic optical lattice with sub-wavelength spatial structure. The potential is formed by the nonlinear optical response of the three-level Rydberg-dressed atoms, which is not constrained by the diffraction limit of the driving fields. The lattice consists of a 3D array of ultra-narrow Lorentzian wells with sub-nanometer widths. The scheme allows moving adjacent sites to close distances with sub-nanometer resolution. These extreme scales are now optically accessible by a hybrid scheme deploying the dipolar interaction and optical twist of atomic eigenstates. The interaction-induced two-body resonance that forms the trapping potential, only occurs at a peculiar laser intensity, localizing the trap sites to ultra-narrow regions over the standing-wave driving field. The Lorentzian trapping potentials with 2Åwidth and 30MHz depth are realizable with scattering rates as low as 1Hz. The mentioned improvements allow quantum logic operations with Rydberg-Fermi interaction. These techniques are particularly demanding for the realization of atomtronics, quantum walks, Hubbard models, and neutral-atom quantum simulation.

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