Alex Guttridge (QLM, Durham University)
Dual-species tweezer arrays for multifunctional quantum devices
In January, I started an 8-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which has given me the opportunity to start a new experimental project here at Durham. In this talk, I will share my experiences with the fellowship process and discuss my approach to identifying promising research directions. I will then present my new project which will develop a platform that combines individually trapped atoms with mesoscopic ensembles of a second species using optical tweezer arrays. The distinct optical transitions of the two species can be exploited to achieve cross-talk-free local control and fast optical readout while enabling novel quantum cooling schemes. I’ll outline some of my mid-term goals, including exploring quantum refrigeration and new quantum sensing techniques. Looking further ahead, I plan to harness the complementary nature of the dual-species system to explore phenomena that demand particles fulfilling distinct roles—for example, data and ancilla in quantum error-correcting codes, and matter and fields in lattice gauge theories. Ultimately, this research paves the way for a platform that could combine multiple quantum technologies within a single architecture.