Trapping 11,000 Atoms in a Tweezer Array Generated by a Single Metasurface

Abstract

The scalability of physical qubit numbers is a central challenge toward a universal fault-tolerant quantum computer. The inherent scalability of atom array quantum computers stems from the identical nature of atomic qubits, so the available qubit resource is primarily limited by the number of atoms that can be trapped and controlled. Here, we robustly trap 11,000 individual atoms in a tweezer array, thereby enabling the available qubit resource to reach the tens-of-thousands scale for the first time among all quantum computation platforms. This advance is enabled by a single metasurface, approximately 2 cm in diameter, that generates the entire tweezer array without the need for microscope objectives, thereby maximizing laser-power efficiency. The large aperture ensures a working distance of about 1.5 cm, allowing the metasurface to be placed outside the vacuum cell and avoiding the technical complications of in-vacuum operation. We further characterize the randomly loaded atom array using the statistical theory of percolation phase transitions. This work takes an important first step toward a quantum computer at the 10,000-qubit scale.