Towards a Rydberg neutral 171Yb atom array in a near-concentric dual-wavelength optical cavity

Rydberg neutral atom arrays (RNAA) have shown to be a promising platform for quantum information science (QIS). Integrating an RNAA inside an optical cavity, thus realizing a cavity QED system, can further enrich the platform’s capabilities e.g., with faster measurements, faster single-photon generation, and nonlocal many-body interactions for improved performance in quantum enhanced metrology, networking, quantum error correction, and simulation.

As well, in recent years the 171Yb atomic species has shown to be a great candidate for QIS applications for its nuclear spin-1/2 structure as well as various optical transitions attractive for qubit readout (556 nm), clock, telecom (1389 nm), and single-photon Rydberg excitation.

In this talk we present ongoing progress in building our next-generation setup, to integrate a neutral 171Yb atom array in a near-concentric dual-wavelength (556 & 1389) optical cavity, including generation of 171Yb MOTs in the chamber and cavity finesse characterization. Upon successful integration we envision fast non-destructive qubit readout (to enable applications in error correction, simulation, and generic adaptive circuits), generation of metrologically useful entangled states, and an efficient long-distance quantum networking node.