Site-resolved imaging of a bosonic Mott insulator of Li-7 atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate single-site and single-atom-resolved fluorescence imaging of a bosonic Mott insulator of 7Li atoms in an optical lattice. The fluorescence images are obtained by implementing Raman sideband cooling on a deep two-dimensional square lattice, where we collect scattered photons with a high numerical aperture objective lens. The square lattice is created by a folded retroreflected beam configuration that can reach a 2.5 mK lattice depth from a single laser source. The lattice beam is elliptically focused to have a large area with deep potential. On average, 4000 photons are collected per atom during 1 s of Raman sideband cooling and the imaging fidelity is over 95% in the central 80 x 80 lattice sites. As a first step to study correlated quantum phases, we present the site-resolved imaging of a Mott insulator. By tuning the magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance, the scattering length can be increased to 680aB and we are able to produce a large-sized unity filling Mott insulator with 2000 atoms at low temperature. Our work provides a stepping stone to further in-depth investigations of intriguing quantum many-body phases in optical lattices.