Painted loading: a toolkit for loading spatially large optical tweezer arrays

Abstract Arrays of neutral atoms in optical tweezers are widely used in quantum simulation and computation, and precision frequency metrology. The capabilities of these arrays are enhanced by maximising the number of available sites. Here we increase the spatial extent of a two-dimensional array of 88 Sr atoms by sweeping the frequency of the cooling light to move the atomic reservoir across the array. We load arrays with vertical heights of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>&gt;</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> 100 µm, exceeding the height of an array loaded from a static reservoir by a factor of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>&gt;</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> 3. We investigate the site-to-site atom number distribution, tweezer lifetime, and temperature, achieving an average temperature across the array of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>1.49</mml:mn> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> µK. By controlling the frequency sweep we show it is possible to control the distribution of atoms across the array, including uniform and non-uniformly loaded arrays, and arrays with selectively loaded regions. We explain our results using a rate equation model which is in qualitative agreement with the data.