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

被引:139
作者
Young, Aaron W. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Eckner, William J. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Milner, William R. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Kedar, Dhruv [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Norcia, Matthew A. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Oelker, Eric [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Schine, Nathan [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Ye, Jun [1 ,2 ,3 ]
Kaufman, Adam M. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
机构
[1] Univ Colorado, JILA, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
[2] NIST, Boulder, CO 80305 USA
[3] Univ Colorado, Dept Phys, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
D O I
10.1038/s41586-020-3009-y
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
The preparation of large, low-entropy, highly coherent ensembles of identical quantum systems is fundamental for many studies in quantum metrology(1), simulation(2) and information(3). However, the simultaneous realization of these properties remains a central challenge in quantum science across atomic and condensed-matter systems(2,4-7). Here we leverage the favourable properties of tweezer-trapped alkaline-earth (strontium-88) atoms(8-10), 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 10(16). 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 parallel(11,12). The result is a relative fractional frequency stability of 5.2(3) x 10(-17)tau(-1/2) (where tau 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 transition(13) in tailored atom arrays.
引用
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页码:408 / +
页数:16
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