desqtopMOT
NOTICE: desptopMOT is no longer available. Information on this page is for demonstration purposes only. Please contact Infleqtion sales for alternatives.
desqtopMOT: Cold Atom Platform for Quantum Education and Workforce Development
Explore, educate, and empower the workforce of tomorrow with the desqtopMOT cold atom platform. The desqtopMOT offers users the following:
- Vacuum system
- Atom source (Rb)
- Beam delivery optics and breadboard
- Stabilized laser system, including all control electronics
- Reference spectroscopy cell
- Comprehensive teaching curriculum
Delivered as a complete standalone system, the desqtopMOT can be installed and operational in hours.
Base Model
- Atomic physics
- Experiments with thermal atoms
- Doppler-free spectroscopy
- Laser cooling atoms and MOT creation
- 5-chapter curriculum with 8 experiments
Advanced Model
- All Base Model features
- Advanced optics and measurement tools
- GUI via Jupyter Notebook
- Programmable laser tunability
- Expanded curriculum with 5 new experiments, including EIT and Faraday rotation
With a modular design, upgrading the desqtopMOT laser hardware enables access to advanced experiments involving cold atom MOTs and expands the teaching curriculum to cover 13 total experiments.
Explore the desqtopMOT Experience
Hear from Chuck Williams, Infleqtion Product Manager, and Evan Salim, Quantum Fellow and Lead Prototype Engineer, about the desqtopMOT.
What can I do with the desqtopMOT?
Gain hands-on experience with atomic physics – from light-matter interaction and atom fluorescence to revealing the energy levels of rubidium atoms through spectroscopy.
The desqtopMOT exposes students to real cold atom quantum hardware and builds up a student’s knowledge of cold atom physics to the point of actually creating a magneto-optical trap (MOT) cloud of atoms. After that, users will characterize the size and temperature of the Rb MOT and explore the unique physical properties of cold atoms.
- Basics of atomic physics
- Spectroscopy
- Light-matter interaction
- Practical geometrical optics (laser beam delivery and diagnostics)
- Light polarization
- Absorption spectroscopy
- Doppler broadening
- Laser trapping and cooling
- Zeeman effect
- Faraday rotation
- Experimental analysis
- Error estimation
- Technical report writing
Bennett Brown, Executive Director of QuSTEAM
“With the desqtopMOT platform and teaching curriculum, students can begin exploring the cutting edge in quantum information science, generating and testing hypotheses about light-matter interaction with cold atoms. Busy educators and instructors appreciate this tool.”
Who is desqtopMOT for?
The desqtopMOT offers students an immersive experience, guiding them through a comprehensive journey that starts with understanding the basic theory of using laser light and magnetic fields to create atomic samples.
With just a touch of a button, students can explore the practical steps involved in conducting quantum experiments.
Serving as a practical quantum platform, it empowers students to become comfortable and confident in creating and controlling cold atoms.
The desqtopMOT is a starting point for students to explore commercial applications, such as atom-based timekeeping, sensing, and computing.
- 4-year colleges and Master’s programs wanting a turn-key lab course solution
- Community colleges building the next wave of the quantum workforce
- Commercial companies and defense primes that need to accelerate their position in cold atom quantum technology – first through ready-out-of-the-box training, then as an early quantum applications development platform
Why Cold Atoms?
What is a MOT?
A MOT uses lasers to cool atoms and specially configured magnetic fields in a Nobel Prize-winning technique to create a trap to form an ensemble of atoms. Due to its floating boundary-less appearance, this is often called a “cloud” of atoms.
What can MOTs do?
MOTs are ideal for educators, researchers, and quantum engineers to probe fundamental quantum effects using cold atoms and explore new atom-sensing applications.
Case Study: Measuring MOT Temperature via Time-Resolved Imaging of the MOT Cloud
In the Advanced Model, users will communicate with the miniMOT V2 vacuum system, the laser system, and an embedded controller using Python scripting via a Jupyter Notebook interface. In the example shown, a script communicates with a camera imaging the MOT. The script starts with the desqtopMOT unit powered on, warmed up, and the laser beams properly aligned for MOT creation.
- An image is taken of the background
- The MOT is loaded by activating the magnetic and optical fields
- The MOT is released (magnetic field and laser light turned off)
The MOT is re-imaged at a programmed delay “time of flight” (3 ms), and a colorized atom density plot is generated on the display screen. This plot shows the MOT cloud dispersing with no magneto-optical input to keep the atoms trapped and cooled.
- A Gaussian fit of the MOT image is calculated and plotted alongside the original colorized image.
- The delay between MOT release and imaging (the time of flight) is slightly increased to 5ms (preprogrammed by the user into the script), and the process is repeated.
This results in a time-resolved picture of the MOT dissipating without trapping and cooling forces, which is directly correlated to the temperature of the MOT cloud achieved with the input parameters!
The embedded controller has additional data acquisition inputs. When combined with a suitable large-area photodetector, the user can simultaneously measure atom density by detecting optical NIR fluorescence.
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