Sorting atomic positions in an optical tweezer atom arrays

Abstract

In this work we report on the development of a dynamical rearrangement system for optical tweezer atom arrays. This lays the foundation for the Rydberg atom-array experiment at ICFO which aims to simulate lattice gauge theories with strontium-88. The developed system uses acousto-optic deflectors (AODs) to move individually trapped atoms into defect-free target geometries. We focus on the laser source built to feed the AODs, a tapered amplifier at the 813.4nm clock-magic wavelength. Therein, the beam shaping and fiber-coupling optics have been assembled and characterized as part of this thesis project, reaching 58% fiber coupling efficiency. We explore the practical alignment and control of movable tweezers through an independent test setup, specifically characterizing the frequency-dependent diffraction efficiency of the crossed AODs and their single- and multi-tone performance. In addition, we address the need for efficient atom rearrangement by implementing and benchmarking three sorting algorithms of varying computational cost. Finally, we tackle the required scaling analysis by estimating the maximum array size rearrangeable within the atomic trap lifetime, ensuring thereby the suitability of the system for defectfree array assembly and the limits for the current experiment