Iterative Assembly of 2D Molecular Tweezer Arrays

Laser-cooled polar molecules in rearrangeable optical tweezer arrays are an emerging platform for quantum science, offering long lived interacting states, complex internal structure, and site-resolved control. A major challenge in molecular tweezer arrays is reaching large system sizes, important for applications ranging from quantum simulation to quantum-enhanced metrology. Prior to the current work, our rearranged arrays averaged 8 molecules, insufficient for many-body physics in 2D.

In this talk, we report a new scheme to assemble 2D molecular arrays which repeatedly loads molecules from a reservoir into a storage array. To protect stored molecules from subsequent rounds of loading, we transfer them into dark states, implementing synthetic zones with minimal crosstalk. We further demonstrate rearrangement into square arrays with sizes up to 6x6, opening the door to exploring quantum many-body physics in 2D geometries.