Half-minute-scale atomic coherence and high relative stability in a tweezer clock

Young, A. W., Eckner, W. J., Milner, W. R., Kedar, D., Norcia, M. A., Oelker, E. , Schine, N., Ye, J. and Kaufman, A. M. (2020) Half-minute-scale atomic coherence and high relative stability in a tweezer clock. Nature, 588, pp. 403-413. (doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-3009-y) (PMID:33328666)

Abstract

The preparation of large, low-entropy, highly coherent ensembles of identical quantum systems is fundamental for many studies in quantum metrology1, simulation2 and information3. However, the simultaneous realization of these properties remains a central challenge in quantum science across atomic and condensed-matter systems2,4,5,6,7. Here we leverage the favourable properties of tweezer-trapped alkaline-earth (strontium-88) atoms8,9,10, and introduce a hybrid approach to tailoring optical potentials that balances scalability, high-fidelity state preparation, site-resolved readout and preservation of atomic coherence. With this approach, we achieve trapping and optical-clock excited-state lifetimes exceeding 40 seconds in ensembles of approximately 150 atoms. This leads to half-minute-scale atomic coherence on an optical-clock transition, corresponding to quality factors well in excess of 1016. These coherence times and atom numbers reduce the effect of quantum projection noise to a level that is comparable with that of leading atomic systems, which use optical lattices to interrogate many thousands of atoms in parallel11,12. The result is a relative fractional frequency stability of 5.2(3) × 10−17τ−1/2 (where τ is the averaging time in seconds) for synchronous clock comparisons between sub-ensembles within the tweezer array. When further combined with the microscopic control and readout that are available in this system, these results pave the way towards long-lived engineered entanglement on an optical-clock transition13 in tailored atom arrays.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by ARO, AFOSR, DARPA, the National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center at JILA (1734006) and NIST. M.A.N., E.O. and N.S. acknowledge support from the NRC research associateship programme.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Oelker, Dr Eric
• Authors: Young, A. W., Eckner, W. J., Milner, W. R., Kedar, D., Norcia, M. A., Oelker, E., Schine, N., Ye, J., and Kaufman, A. M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Nature
• Publisher: Nature Research
• ISSN: 0028-0836
• ISSN (Online): 1476-4687
• Published Online: 16 December 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
• First Published: First published in Nature 588:403-413
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy