Atomic Fock State Preparation Using Rydberg Blockade

Abstract

We use coherent excitation of 3-16 atom ensembles to demonstrate collective Rabi flopping mediated by Rydberg blockade. Using calibrated atom number measurements, we quantitatively confirm the expected $\sqrt{N}$ Rabi frequency enhancement to within 4%. The resulting atom number distributions are consistent with essentially perfect blockade. We then use collective Rabi $\pi$ pulses to produce ${\cal N}=1,2$ atom number Fock states with fidelities of 62% and 48% respectively. The ${\cal N}=2$ Fock state shows the collective Rabi frequency enhancement without corruption from atom number fluctuations.