Optical tweezers generated by SLM
An array of 10000 optical tweezers, ready to trap 10000 atoms. Using a spatial light modulator we can trap atoms in versatile geometries and even write our lab logo in atoms.
Dual-element atom array
We use arrays of optical tweezers to trap individual rubidium (blue) and cesium (yellow) atoms. Shown is a 512 aray with a 20um scale bar.
The Bernien Lab - Lab Space
Vacuum chamber with high resolution microscopy
Rendering of our vacuum chamber.
Our design combines plenty of optical access for high resolution microscopy, ultrahigh vacuum and advanced electric field control.
Beam reflecting of a nano structure
We study optical fields to control individual atoms in the vicinity of nanostructures.
FDTD simulations also look very pretty.
Aligning optics
- Many optical elements guide the laser light to the atoms.
BernienLab @ UChicago
The Bernien lab focuses on finding answers to the questions: How can we scale fully controlled quantum systems from the current few-particle level to many particles and large distances? How can we study the fascinating effects that arise from the increased complexity in these systems? How can these phenomena be utilized for quantum technology?
The lab combines techniques from quantum control and quantum optics with ultracold atoms and nanotechnology in order to develop new ways of engineering large, fully controlled quantum systems and studying the phenomena that arise in such systems.
Check out this lab video to get to know us: BernienLab the movie
News
03 Nov. 2023: New paper: Combining atom arrays with photonic chips
Check out our new work on combining atom arrays with photonic chips on arXiv. We show atom array technology such as loading large tweezer arrays, single-shot fluorescence images, and rearrangement works in combination with photonic chips. For this we introduce a new background-free imaging technique completely…
20 Oct. 2023: Welcome Nayana, Nikhil, and Ana Lucia!
The BernienLab is growing and we are very excited to welcome the latest additions: Nayana Tiwari is joining from CalPoly as a PhD in the quantum network lab, Nikhil Harle is joining from Yale the new dual-species atom array setup, and Ana Lucia Michielsen is a UChicago undergraduate research on the new dual-species…
15 Oct. 2023: Quantum Creators Prize: Congrats Kevin and Yu-Hao
Kevin Singh and Yu-Hao Deng of the BernienLab are both awardees of the 2023 Quantum Creators Prize. The prize recognizes ground-breaking achievements of early career researchers. As part of the prize, Kevin and Yu-Hao will present their research at the Chicago Quantum Summit. Congratulations, Kevin and Yu-Hao!
16 Sep. 2023: New article on quantum networks
Today our article on quantum networks with atomic processing nodes was published in npj Quantum Information. If you are interested in our future vision of quantum networks with advanced functionalities beyond QKD, check out this article. It was a lot of fun to work on this together with Jacob Covey and Harald…
We are very grateful for the support from the following sources:
