Lithium Quantum Microscope for Fermionic Quantum Simulations

Apr 5, 2025

Quantum systems

Quantum Simulation seeks to unravel the mysteries of complex quantum systems that influence fields like materials science, chemistry, and biology. By modelling these systems through precise, controlled experiments at the quantum-mechanical level, we gain new, profound insights. Such quantum simulators based on ultracold atoms in optical lattices have achieved remarkable control over individual atoms in a many-body ensemble through the use of so-called quantum-gas microscopes. Through diffraction-limited fluorescence imaging and optical addressing every lattice site can be imaged and manipulated with sub-µm precision.

From 2025, we offer a PhD position in the development and construction of a new quantum-gas microscope with fermionic lithium aimed at taking this control to the next level via digital quantum gates. Such gate-based control, as known from quantum computers, will allow us to address even more complex quantum problems, for example, from high-temperature superconductivity or quantum chemistry. The implementation of high-fidelity gates in this platform is a relatively new but highly promising approach to quantum computing. One speciality of our hardware is that we use fermionic atoms, allowing us to implement quantum algorithms for the simulation of electrons without a cumbersome mapping of the quantum code to qubits first.

The PhD project will involve the setup of high-power optical lattices, advanced laser cooling methods, high-resolution imaging at the single-photon level, and quantum simulation experiments of strongly correlated electron systems. What does that mean for you in practice? You will take some of the best lasers available (lowest noise, highest power) and point them into a vacuum chamber where you’ve created a gas of atoms at nano Kelvin temperature. The atoms then move as perfect quantum particles in the potential landscape that you’ve created, solving the many-body Schrödinger equation in regimes that no supercomputer can tackle. With more laser beams, you will then take an image of your atoms, resolving each one of them. Through clever mapping, this can give us new insights into quantum problems that have challenged physicists for decades. Of course, you will not do this alone but in a highly motivated team with strong partners around the UK and Europe.

If this sounds fascinating to you and you would like to hear more, please get in touch with Timon Hilker (timon.hilker@strath.ac.uk).

Useful links: Flyer for open positions