Ytterbium Rydberg Atom Arrays

Arrays of laser-cooled neutral atoms in optical tweezers have emerged as a promising platform, because of their flexibility and the potential for strong interactions via Rydberg states. We will present our progress with a new platform based on Yb atoms. In particular, we will discuss results on cooling, trapping and imaging Yb atoms in defect-free tweezer arrays, novel spectroscopy of Yb Rydberg states, and trapping of Yb Rydberg states leveraging the polarizability of the Yb$^+$ ion core in a standard, red-detuned optical tweezer. Using these traps, we realize coherence times between two Rydberg levels exceeding the lifetime of un-trapped Rydberg atoms, overcoming a limitation in existing alkali experiments, where Rydberg states are not trapped by the same potential that confines ground state atoms. We will discuss ongoing progress towards gates and quantum dynamics in many-body systems.