Optical Microscope for Quantum Gases in a 2D Trap

Ultracold quantum gases are used to experimentally realize and quantitatively study fundamental models of condensed matter physics. When combined with optical lattice potentials, ultracold quantum gases allow for a large scale implementation of quantum materials with ultra cold atoms playing the role of electrons or cooper pairs in real materials. We create a new type of quantum simulator by combining a quantum gas in a deeply 2D surface trap with a high numerical aperture microscope. We describe the current status of the experiment which enables optical imaging with an exceptionally large numerical aperture of up to $NA=0.8$. This microscope access allows us to efficiently collect fluorescence photons for low- background imaging and very high optical resolution on the 500\,nm scale. Optical lattice potentials are generated by direct projection of the lattice potentials using a novel trapping approach with a hologram generation of the lattice geometry.