{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113792"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113792","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Towards synthetic Rydberg lattices with optical tweezer arrays","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ang'Ong'A, Jackson"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Physics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Gadway, Bryce","Lorenz, Virginia","Madhavan, Vidya","Kwiat, Paul"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-04-29T21:33:59Z","date_published":"2022-04-29T21:33:59Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z","subjects":["Tweezer array","potassium","single atoms","gray-molasses"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2021 Jackson Ang'Ong'A"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113792","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Gadway, Bryce","Lorenz, Virginia","Madhavan, Vidya","Kwiat, Paul"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ang'Ong'A, Jackson"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-04-29T21:33:59Z","2021-12","2021-07-21"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Physics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Tweezer array","potassium","single atoms","gray-molasses"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2021 Jackson Ang'Ong'A"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113792"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","The student, Jackson Ang'Ong'A, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-17 at 00:29.","The student, Jackson Ang'Ong'A, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-07-17 at 00:37.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-07-21 at 17:01.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16999 on 2022-04-06 at 17:08:22","Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T21:33:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 ANGONGA-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf: 54589936 bytes, checksum: 42dc781d89642ab62dfb8f0e017027ce (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4214 bytes, checksum: 1e4d876ec8894d3f0d10e4c232f417d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-21","Trapped neutral atoms in optical tweezers have emerged as a viable platform for quantum simulation, metrology and quantum information processing due to their simple design yet versatile application. Recent developments in loading, cooling and re-arrangement techniques have been combined with Rydberg interactions and have led to insightful studies of quantum many-body phenomena based on analog simulation of Ising and XY models. So far, such systems have mostly been limited to interactions that involve one or two Rydberg states. Concurrently, synthetic lattices have also emerged as a viable platform for quantum simulation of many-body systems through site-by-site engineering of many-body Hamiltonians. Synthetic lattices feature both full spectroscopic control and tunability of every single-body term in the simulated Hamiltonian and thereby enable a bottom-up approach to studying emergent phenomena when combined with interactions. In our experiment, we bring the idea of synthetic lattices to a system of potassium atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays, where tweezer-trapped atoms are excited to a Rydberg state followed by applying multi-tone microwave fields to drive transitions to neighboring Rydberg levels. While such a synthetic lattice can be used to study topology and disorder in 1D, our system allows us to bring Rydberg interaction into the picture and study the interplay between topology, disorder and interactions. One novel phenomenon that has been identified to appear in such a system is the spontaneous formation of quantum strings in the synthetic dimension. This work also presents some technical studies on cooling and imaging of single atoms in optical tweezers in preparation for Rydberg excitation. Specifically, we demonstrate a simple approach to in-trap imaging which involves using a near-detuned (780 nm) optical tweezer, which leads to relatively minor differential (ground vs. excited state) Stark shifts. We demonstrate that simple and robust loading, cooling, and imaging can be achieved through a combined addressing of the D1 (770 nm) and D2 (767 nm) transitions. While imaging on the D2 transition, we can simultaneously apply Λ-enhanced gray molasses (GM) on the D1 transition, preserving low backgrounds for single-atom imaging through spectral filtering. Using D1 cooling during and after trap loading, we demonstrate enhanced (75%) loading efficiencies as well as cooling to low temperatures (≈ 15 μK). These results suggest a simple and robust path for loading and cooling large arrays of potassium atoms in optical tweezers, through the use of resource-efficient near-detuned optical tweezers and GM cooling."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Towards synthetic Rydberg lattices with optical tweezer arrays"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Gadway, Bryce","Lorenz, Virginia","Madhavan, Vidya","Kwiat, Paul"],"dc:creator":["Ang'Ong'A, Jackson"],"dc:date":["2022-04-29T21:33:59Z","2021-12","2021-07-21"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-04-06 without embargo terms","The student, Jackson Ang'Ong'A, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-17 at 00:29.","The student, Jackson Ang'Ong'A, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-07-17 at 00:37.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-07-21 at 17:01.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16999 on 2022-04-06 at 17:08:22","Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T21:33:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 ANGONGA-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf: 54589936 bytes, checksum: 42dc781d89642ab62dfb8f0e017027ce (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4214 bytes, checksum: 1e4d876ec8894d3f0d10e4c232f417d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-07-21","Trapped neutral atoms in optical tweezers have emerged as a viable platform for quantum simulation, metrology and quantum information processing due to their simple design yet versatile application. Recent developments in loading, cooling and re-arrangement techniques have been combined with Rydberg interactions and have led to insightful studies of quantum many-body phenomena based on analog simulation of Ising and XY models. So far, such systems have mostly been limited to interactions that involve one or two Rydberg states. Concurrently, synthetic lattices have also emerged as a viable platform for quantum simulation of many-body systems through site-by-site engineering of many-body Hamiltonians. Synthetic lattices feature both full spectroscopic control and tunability of every single-body term in the simulated Hamiltonian and thereby enable a bottom-up approach to studying emergent phenomena when combined with interactions. In our experiment, we bring the idea of synthetic lattices to a system of potassium atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays, where tweezer-trapped atoms are excited to a Rydberg state followed by applying multi-tone microwave fields to drive transitions to neighboring Rydberg levels. While such a synthetic lattice can be used to study topology and disorder in 1D, our system allows us to bring Rydberg interaction into the picture and study the interplay between topology, disorder and interactions. One novel phenomenon that has been identified to appear in such a system is the spontaneous formation of quantum strings in the synthetic dimension. This work also presents some technical studies on cooling and imaging of single atoms in optical tweezers in preparation for Rydberg excitation. Specifically, we demonstrate a simple approach to in-trap imaging which involves using a near-detuned (780 nm) optical tweezer, which leads to relatively minor differential (ground vs. excited state) Stark shifts. We demonstrate that simple and robust loading, cooling, and imaging can be achieved through a combined addressing of the D1 (770 nm) and D2 (767 nm) transitions. While imaging on the D2 transition, we can simultaneously apply Λ-enhanced gray molasses (GM) on the D1 transition, preserving low backgrounds for single-atom imaging through spectral filtering. Using D1 cooling during and after trap loading, we demonstrate enhanced (75%) loading efficiencies as well as cooling to low temperatures (≈ 15 μK). These results suggest a simple and robust path for loading and cooling large arrays of potassium atoms in optical tweezers, through the use of resource-efficient near-detuned optical tweezers and GM cooling."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113792"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2021 Jackson Ang'Ong'A"],"dc:subject":["Tweezer array","potassium","single atoms","gray-molasses"],"dc:title":["Towards synthetic Rydberg lattices with optical tweezer arrays"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Physics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:53Z"}