Long Range Interacting Models and Progress Towards Cooperative Photon Capture, Storage, and Release in a Subwavelength Erbium Quantum Gas Microscope  

Quantum gas microscopes enable direct, real-space studies of strongly correlated matter at the level of individual atoms. When combined with intrinsically long-range interactions, they provide a powerful platform for exploring collective phenomena with no analog in short-range systems. In this talk, I will present our work with a quantum gas microscope based on erbium atoms confined in an optical lattice.

I will highlight a series of landmark results realized with this apparatus, each based on a different long-range interaction. Specifically, the observation of dipolar quantum solids, spin squeezing in the fermionic t–J model, and cooperative effects such as superradiance and subradiance at the single-atom level. Together, these experiments demonstrate how dipolar interactions enrich magnetic ordering, entanglement generation, and cooperative dynamics in lattice quantum gases.

Building on these advances, I focus on ongoing efforts to realize a super and subradiant quantum repeater and memory. Superradiant modes are highly directional, allowing for high-fidelity photon capture and recovery. We inject a photon into the array and then store it by rapidly switching it into a subradiant mode via a high-momentum lattice pulse. Finally, we propose capturing the photon with high efficiency using a moderate-NA in-vacuum lens. These results highlight quantum gas microscopes as a versatile experimental platform for engineering and probing photon behavior using near-field dipole-dipole interactions.