Microsecond-scale imaging of individual ytterbium atoms

Detecting and manipulating individual atoms with high fidelity is crucial in state-of-the-art quantum simulators, processors and atomic clocks. In this talk I will present recent results from our Yb tweezer platform, aiming to engineer many-body fermionic systems with single-particle resolution. We load different ytterbium isotopes in a tweezer array from a narrow-line MOT operating in a five-beam configuration, so far demonstrated only for lanthanides. We image single atoms using a weakly-destructive fast imaging scheme based on alternated counterpropagating light pulses at 399 nm addressing the broad 1S0-1P1 Yb transition. We achieve single-atom detection fidelities and survival probabilities > 99.8% with few μs illumination time. We employ the same technique to detect single or multiple atoms in free space with high fidelity and a position spread of about 1 μm. By preparing and releasing multiply-filled traps, we demonstrate parity-projection-free detection both for short and long time-of-flights (TOFs). This allows to perform TOF thermometry of single- or few-atom ensembles and, in the near future, to measure fermionic and bosonic multi-particle correlations.