2D fermi gases under the microscope

Confining a quantum fluid in two dimensions (2D) profoundly changes its behavior and leads to a host of new phenomena, for example the possibility of topological superfluid transitions and quantum Hall states. Here we report our progress towards creating a uniform 2D fermionic gas of 6Li confined in a highly flexible optical potential. The homogenous density enables the study of physics typically difficult to access in harmonically trapped samples, such as critical phenomena, correlation functions, superfluid properties and the spectroscopic response. Incorporating a dual-objective high-resolution imaging system allows us to both manipulate and image the gas with sub-micron resolution, permitting the projection of tailored potentials and in situ imaging of topological defects.