Abstract

A quantum register of about a hundred of qubits has been reported recently in a single occupancy two dimensional (2D) optical microtrap array [1,2]. 2D optical microtrap arrays present two characteristic features: (i) the simplicity to achieve single-site addressing since the trap separation distances can be done as large as 100 μm; and (ii) the freedom to move independently sets of traps or even individual traps to control the tunnelling. However, cooling a single atom down to the lowest vibrational state of an optical microtrap is still a challenging issue and, for some physical realizations, represents one of main experimental limitations to perform quantum computations with optical microtraps. Thus, developing novel techniques to determine and, eventually, to engineer the population distribution in optical microtraps is a focus of present research [1,2]. In this context, we propose here to make use of the spatial adiabatic passage technique [3], i.e., the matter wave analogue of the well known stimulated Raman adiabatic passage technique [4], to achieve this goal.

© 2011 IEEE