Metasurface Directly Generates 78400 Optical Tweezers, Enabling Scalable Quantum Systems with Record Capacity
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Creating large, precisely controlled arrays of optical tweezers represents a significant hurdle in developing practical quantum technologies, and researchers are continually seeking ways to increase the number of traps available. Yuqing Wang, Yuxuan Liao, and Tao Zhang, alongside colleagues at their institutions, now demonstrate a breakthrough in this area, successfully generating an array of 78,400 optical tweezers using a single metasurface. This achievement represents a substantial leap forward, exceeding the capacity of most existing systems by nearly an order of magnitude, and crucially, eliminates the need for complex additional optics.
The team’s method engineers the wavefront of light with subwavelength precision, directly focusing it into microscopic spots, and shifts the primary limitation for scaling up atom arrays from hardware constraints to available laser power, opening the path to trapping arrays containing tens of thousands of atoms. The resulting array also exhibits exceptional intensity uniformity, exceeding 90%, ensuring consistent and reliable single-atom loading for future experiments. Scalability remains a major challenge in building practical fault-tolerant quantum computers. Currently, the largest number of qubits achieved across leading quantum platforms ranges from hundreds to thousands. In atom arrays, scalability is primarily constrained by the capacity to generate large numbers of optical tweezers, and conventional techniques struggle to produce arrays much beyond approximately 10,000 tweezers. Metasurface Creates 78,400 Optical Tweezers Scientists have achieved a significant breakthrough in scalable quantum computing by demonstrating the creation of a 78,400-tweezer array using a metasurface, a specially engineered surface with subwavelength structures. This innovative approach represents a nearly tenfold increase over most existing systems and allows for the precise control of light to create a high-density array of optical tweezers. These tweezers, used to trap and manipulate microscopic objects like atoms, are crucial for building more powerful quantum computers and simulators.
The team measured excellent intensity uniformity across the array, exceeding 96. 7%, which is crucial for homogeneous single-atom loading and paves the way for trapping arrays containing more than 10,000 atoms in the near future. This uniformity ensures that each atom experiences nearly identical trapping conditions, minimizing errors in quantum operations. Experiments confirm that the current limitation to scaling isn’t the technology of the metasurface itself, but rather the available laser power, indicating a clear path towards further scaling. This metasurface design eliminates the need for complex optical setups, simplifying system integration and reducing limitations on scalability. High-resolution imaging visually confirms the successful generation of the large-scale trap lattice. This work establishes metasurfaces as a promising platform for scaling the number of qubits in atom-array systems, potentially reaching the order of 10,000 qubits in the near future and opening new avenues for advanced quantum computation. Large, Uniform Tweezers Array Demonstrated Researchers successfully generated an array of 78,400 optical tweezers using a metasurface, representing a substantial increase over existing technologies. This innovative approach leverages a metasurface containing a large number of subwavelength phase-control pixels to precisely engineer the wavefront of incident light, enabling the creation of a high-density array of optical tweezers without the need for conventional microscope objectives. The resulting array exhibits high intensity uniformity, exceeding 96. 7%, making it suitable for trapping and manipulating large numbers of atoms with precision. This uniformity ensures that each atom experiences nearly identical trapping conditions, minimizing errors in quantum operations. Experiments confirm that laser power, rather than the number of pixels on the metasurface, currently limits the total number of traps, indicating a clear path towards further scaling. The metasurface design eliminates the need for complex optical setups, simplifying system integration and paving the way for arrays containing tens of thousands of atoms. High-resolution imaging of the complete 280×280 tweezer array visually confirms the successful generation of the large-scale trap lattice.
This research establishes metasurfaces as a viable and promising platform for building larger and more powerful quantum systems, bringing the realization of scalable neutral atom quantum computers closer to reality. Large, Uniform Atom Arrays via Metasurface Projection This work demonstrates a significant advance in the scalability of neutral atom arrays, a promising platform for quantum computing. By employing a metasurface with a large number of subwavelength phase-control pixels, the team bypassed the need for complex microscope objectives, shifting the primary constraint from tweezer generation hardware to available laser power. The resulting array exhibits high intensity uniformity, making it suitable for trapping and manipulating large numbers of atoms with precision. While acknowledging that laser power currently limits the total number of traps, the demonstrated pixel count per tweezer remains well above theoretical minimums, indicating substantial potential for further scaling.
This research establishes metasurfaces as a viable and promising platform for building larger and more powerful quantum systems, bringing the realization of scalable neutral atom quantum computers closer to reality. 👉 More information 🗞 Direct Generation of an Array with 78400 Optical Tweezers Using a Single Metasurface 🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08222 Tags: