Suppression of coherent light scattering in a three-dimensional atomic array

Nature Physics (2026) Cite this article Understanding how atoms collectively interact with light is important for both fundamental studies and the design of light–matter interfaces in quantum technologies. Over the past decades, many experiments have arranged atoms in ordered arrays and used constructive and destructive interference to enhance or suppress coupling to electromagnetic fields, thereby tailoring collective light–matter interactions. These studies have mainly considered one- and two-dimensional arrays. However, only three-dimensional arrays can suppress coherent light scattering in all directions, but such omnidirectional suppression has not been observed experimentally. Here we observe a strong reduction of light scattering in a three-dimensional atomic array prepared as a Mott insulator in optical lattices. The residual scattering arises from the delocalization of atoms, Raman processes and inelastic scattering associated with saturation. We also demonstrate that light scattering can probe density fluctuations in many-body states, allowing us to characterize the superfluid-to-Mott-insulator transition and defects generated during dynamical parameter ramps. These results provide a route to prepare subradiant states for photon storage and to probe correlations in many-body systems in optical lattices.This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription $32.99 / 30 days cancel any timeSubscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $259.00 per yearonly $21.58 per issueBuy this articleUSD 39.95Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkoutThe data that support the findings within this study are available via Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19422912)61. 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Bloch and P. Weckesser for discussions. We thank W. R. Milner for proofreading the paper. We acknowledge support from the NSF (grant number PHY-2208004), from the Center for Ultracold Atoms (an NSF Physics Frontiers Center, grant number PHY-2317134), from the Vannevar-Bush Faculty Fellowship (grant number N00014-23-1-2873), from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF ID number 12405), from the Army Research Office (contract number W911NF2410218) and from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (award HR0011-23-2-0038). Y.K.L. acknowledges the MathWorks Science Fellowship. Y.-K.L. is supported by the NTT Research Fellowship.Yoo Kyung LeePresent address: Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USAVitaly FedoseevPresent address: Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The NetherlandsThese authors contributed equally: Yu-Kun Lu, Hanzhen Lin.Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USAYu-Kun Lu, Hanzhen Lin (林翰桢), Jiahao Lyu, Yoo Kyung Lee, Vitaly Fedoseev & Wolfgang KetterleResearch Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USAYu-Kun Lu, Hanzhen Lin (林翰桢), Jiahao Lyu, Yoo Kyung Lee, Vitaly Fedoseev & Wolfgang KetterleMIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, MA, USAYu-Kun Lu, Hanzhen Lin (林翰桢), Jiahao Lyu, Yoo Kyung Lee, Vitaly Fedoseev & Wolfgang KetterleSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarAll authors conceived the experiment, discussed the physical concepts and edited the paper. Y.-K.L., H.L., J.L., Y.K.L. and V.F. performed the experiment and analysed the data.Correspondence to Yu-Kun Lu.The authors declare no competing interests.Nature Physics thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.The heating pulse excites atoms to higher bands, which reduces the Debye-Waller factor and increases the total light scattering. The solid curve is a fit to the data \(I(t)=1-A\exp (-t/{t}_{0})\), with t0 being the time constant determined by the heating rate. The fit gives A = 0.47(3) and t0 = 0.49(6)ms. Each data point is averaged over 15 independent experimental runs. The error bars are purely statistical and reflect the s.e.m.The incoming wavevector kin is fixed to (0, 0, k) for k = 2π/λ and kout is defined to be \(k(\sin \theta \cos \phi ,\sin \theta \sin \phi ,\cos \theta )\). The forward scattering angle θ = 0 always adds constructively with a maximum S(Q) = N regardless of geometry. The left panel shows the structure factors for a cube and a sphere with N ≈ 3 × 104 atoms. The images are saturated to show small features. The right panel shows the structure factors of a cube and a sphere on a logarithmic scale. The reduced suppression near angle (θ ≈ 105°, ϕ = 0, 90°) is due to the far wing of a Bragg peak. The small angle (θ ≈ 0) ‘scattering’ is the diffraction of the probe beam by the finite-size sample.Light scattering from a cube is independent of the number of scatterers (a). For a sphere, scattering is proportional to the surface area (b). In a and b, the data points are scattered due to the finite size of the solid angle for detection. (c) Simulation of light scattering by random holes. Each data point in c is averaged over 10 random sampling of hole positions. The error bars reflect the s.e.m.The normalized light scattering calculated from the zero-temperature mean-field theory with (without) the additional incoherent scattering is shown as the red (blue) curve. The Debye-Waller factor for singlons is fixed as D = 0.6, while the coherent scattering fraction for n > 1 sites is \({D}^{{\prime} }=0.3\) (red curve) and \({D}^{{\prime} }=0.6\) (blue curve).Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.Reprints and permissionsLu, YK., Lin, H., Lyu, J. et al. Suppression of coherent light scattering in a three-dimensional atomic array. Nat. Phys. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03300-9Download citationReceived: 14 August 2025Accepted: 17 April 2026Published: 02 June 2026Version of record: 02 June 2026DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03300-9Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative