München 2004 – scientific programme

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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 6: Gruppenberichte Fallen und Kühlung

Q 6.2: Group Report

Monday, March 22, 2004, 14:30–15:00, HS 224

Realization of a Quantum Register with Individual Neutral Atoms — •Dominik Schrader, Igor Dotsenko, Yevhen Miroshnychenko, Mkrtych Khudaverdyan, Wolfgang Alt, Stefan Kuhr, Arno Rauschenbeutel, and Dieter Meschede — Institut für Angewandte Physik; Wegelerstrasse 8; 53115 Bonn

The control of all internal and external degrees of freedom of cold single atoms has been a focus of our research group for the past decade. Recently, we have experimentally solved the problem of manipulating each individual atom within a string of several atoms.

For this purpose, we trap a small number of Caesium atoms in a standing wave optical dipole trap. The string of stored atoms serves as a quantum register. Each atom is individually prepared in a desired arbitrary quantum state using microwave transitions within a magnetic field gradient, in analogy to MRI techniques. The spatial resolution of this scheme is equal to the optical resolution of our imaging system of about 2 µm.

We have also improved the absolute position control of the stored atoms to submicrometer precision using our optical conveyor-belt [1,2]. In addition, the controlled motion of one atom or a string of atoms is continuously observed in real-time [3].

The realization of this quantum shift register [4] is a prerequisite for quantum information processing with neutral atoms.

[1] S. Kuhr et al., Science 293, 278 (2001)

[2] S. Kuhr et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 213002 (2003)

[3] Y. Miroshnychenko et al., Optics Express [in print]

[4] D. Schrader et al., in preparation