The reliable detection of single quantumparticles has revolutionized the field of quantum optics and quantum information processing. For several years, researchers have aspired to extend such detection possibilities to larger-scale, strongly correlated quantum systems1,2 in order to record in situ images of a quantum fluid in which each underlying quantum particle is detected. Here we report fluorescence imaging of strongly interacting bosonic Mott insulators in an optical lattice with single-atom and single-site resolution. From our images, we fully reconstruct the atom distribution on the lattice and identify individual excitations with high fidelity. A comparison of the radial density and variance distributions with theory provides a precise in situ temperature and entropy measurement from single images.Weobserve Mott-insulating plateaus with near-zero entropy and clearly resolve the high-entropy rings separating them, even though their width is of the order of just a single lattice site. Furthermore, we show how a Mott insulator melts with increasing temperature, owing to a proliferation of local defects. The ability to resolve individual lattice sites directly opens up new avenues for the manipulation, analysis and applications of strongly interacting quantum gases on a lattice. For example, one could introduce local perturbations or access regions of high entropy, a crucial requirement for the implementation of novel cooling schemes3. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
CITATION STYLE
Sherson, J. F., Weitenberg, C., Endres, M., Cheneau, M., Bloch, I., & Kuhr, S. (2010). Single-atom-resolved fluorescence imaging of an atomic Mott insulator. Nature, 467(7311), 68–72. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09378
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