Technique - (3) Site-resolved quantum gas microscopy (single-atom fluorescence imaging)

Type: Experimental

Description: High-NA in-situ fluorescence imaging of individual atoms/molecules trapped in optical lattices with single-site resolution.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | Laboratory for Ultracold Quantum Gases (Bakr Lab) @ Princeton
Summary:

Bakr pioneered quantum gas microscopy, imaging individual atoms in Hubbard-regime optical lattices with single-site resolution to directly visualize charge, spin, and polaronic correlations in strongly correlated many-body systems, including recent work resolving itinerant spin polarons and the Nagaoka effect in triangular-lattice Hubbard systems. His single-particle/single-molecule-resolved imaging platforms are a borderline but relevant pivot into the quantum-sensing space via ultra-precise, quantum-limited detection of individual quantum particles; included here for review given the emphasis on cutting-edge spatial resolution rather than sensing per se.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | Stamper-Kurn Ultracold Atoms Lab @ UCB
Summary:

Stamper-Kurn's group uses site-resolved quantum-gas microscopy and cavity optomechanics with ultracold atoms to study strongly correlated many-body quantum matter and quantum measurement backaction, techniques that double as some of the most sensitive atom-based force and field sensors available.

Department(s)/lab(s): Physics | Yan Lab @ UChicago
Summary:

Yan built the first quantum gas microscope for ultracold molecules and uses programmable tweezer arrays of fermionic atoms and dipolar molecules to realize custom quantum many-body Hamiltonians (Hubbard and spin models) with single-site resolution. This is primarily a quantum-simulation platform rather than a sensing one, so it is kept as an unpreferred/borderline entry; the same site-resolved tweezer/microscope toolkit underlies emerging proposals for distributed tweezer-array quantum sensors, which is the basis for inclusion.