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SYAD: Symposium SAMOP Dissertation Prize 2026

SYAD 1: SAMOP Dissertation Prize Symposium

SYAD 1.2: Invited Talk

Monday, March 2, 2026, 15:00–15:30, RW 1

Realization of alkaline-earth circular Rydberg qubits in optical tweezer arrays — •Christian Hölzl — 5th Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart, Germany

Circular Rydberg states, which have been key to Nobel Prize-winning experiments in the past, promise orders of magnitude longer lifetimes compared to their low-L counterparts. This allows for overcoming fundamental limitations in the coherence properties of Rydberg-based quantum simulators and computers. In this talk, I will report on the design and setup of a novel room-temperature simulator based on individually trapped circular Rydberg states of strontium atoms in an optical tweezer array. By placing the atoms in a capacitor made from indium tin oxide to suppress detrimental black-body radiation, we demonstrated for the first time circular Rydberg lifetimes of several milliseconds in a room-temperature setup. Together with the optically active second valence electron of strontium, this enables novel qubit, cooling, and mid-circuit readout schemes, paving the way for the next generation of Rydberg-based quantum simulators and computers.

Keywords: Circular Rydberg States; Quantum Simulation; Optical Tweezers