A broad effort is currently underway to develop quantum machines that can outperform their classical counterparts and take advantage of the powerful properties of quantum mechanics to reach unprecedented frontiers in computation, communication, sensing and metrology. Our research is part of this worldwide effort and focuses on the use of neutral atoms to achieve these ambitious goals.
A new architecture for the manipulation and control of cold atoms has recently proven to be particularly suited for these purposes. Programmable arrays of neutral atoms have entered the scene only recently (starting around 2016), and they have very quickly established themselves as a powerful platform for the generation and control of highly-entangled many-body states. They combine the ability to produce arbitrary spatial arrangements of single neutral atoms with the coherent control of their internal states, including coupling to highly excited Rydberg states to achieve strong interactions. Thanks to the high degree of control and programmability that they have recently achieved, experiments based on this platform have demonstrated exciting results in the fields of quantum simulation of complex many-body phases, quantum information processing and quantum metrology.
In our group, we want to push this field forward by developing a new atom array platform that combines two atomic species, an alkaline-earth (Yb) and an alkali atom (Rb). The possibility of selectively controlling the two atoms and their interactions, together with their different and rich atomic structures, can enable a broad range of new applications, ranging from new possibilities for Hamiltonian engineering and the study of highly-entangled phases of matter to the development of new architectures for quantum information processing.