Manetsch Hannah J, Nomura Gyohei, Bataille Elie, Lv Xudong, Leung Kon H, Endres Manuel
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Nature. 2025 Nov;647(8088):60-67. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09641-4. Epub 2025 Sep 24.
Optical tweezer arrays have transformed atomic and molecular physics, now forming the backbone for a range of leading experiments in quantum computing, simulation and metrology. Typical experiments trap tens to hundreds of atomic qubits and, recently, systems with around 1,000 atoms were realized without defining qubits or demonstrating coherent control. However, scaling to thousands of atomic qubits with long coherence times and low-loss and high-fidelity imaging is an outstanding challenge and critical for progress in quantum science, particularly towards quantum error correction (QEC). Here we experimentally realize an array of optical tweezers trapping more than 6,100 neutral atoms in around 12,000 sites, simultaneously surpassing state-of-the-art performance for several metrics that underpin the success of the platform. Specifically, while scaling to such a large number of atoms, we demonstrate a coherence time of 12.6(1) s, a record for hyperfine qubits in an optical tweezer array. We show room-temperature trapping lifetimes of about 23 min, enabling record-high imaging survival of 99.98952(1)% with an imaging fidelity of more than 99.99%. We present a plan for zone-based quantum computing and demonstrate necessary coherence-preserving qubit transport and pick-up/drop-off operations on large spatial scales, characterized through interleaved randomized benchmarking. Our results, along with recent developments, indicate that universal quantum computing and QEC with thousands to tens of thousands of physical qubits could be a near-term prospect.
光镊阵列已经改变了原子和分子物理学，如今已成为量子计算、模拟和计量学一系列前沿实验的支柱。典型的实验能捕获数十到数百个原子量子比特，最近，已经实现了包含约1000个原子的系统，但并未定义量子比特或展示相干控制。然而，要将系统扩展到数千个具有长相干时间、低损耗和高保真成像的原子量子比特，是一项突出的挑战，对于量子科学的进展至关重要，特别是对于量子纠错（QEC）而言。在此，我们通过实验实现了一个光镊阵列，在约12000个位点捕获了超过6100个中性原子，同时在支撑该平台成功的多个指标上超越了当前的先进水平。具体而言，在扩展到如此大量原子的过程中，我们展示了12.6(1)秒的相干时间，这是光镊阵列中超精细量子比特的记录。我们展示了约23分钟的室温捕获寿命，实现了创纪录的99.98952(1)%的高成像存活率，成像保真度超过99.99%。我们提出了基于区域的量子计算计划，并展示了在大空间尺度上进行必要的保持相干的量子比特传输以及拾取/放下操作，通过交错随机基准测试进行了表征。我们的结果以及近期的进展表明，使用数千到数万个物理量子比特进行通用量子计算和QEC可能在近期实现。
