Quantum gas microscope assisted with T- shape vacuum viewports

A quantum gas microscope plays an important role in cold-atom experiments, which provides a high-resolution imaging of the spatial distributions of cold atoms. Here we design, build and calibrate an integrated microscope for quantum gases with all the optical components fixed outside the vacuum chamber. It provides large numerical aperture (NA) of 0.75, as well as good optical access from side for atom loading in cold-atom experiments due to long working distance (7 mm fused silica+6 mm vacuum) of the microscope objective. We make a special design of the vacuum viewport with a T-shape window, to suppress the window flatness distortion introduced by the metal-glass binding process, and protect the high-resolution imaging from distortions due to unflattened window. The achieved Strehl ratio is 0.9204 using scanning-nearfield microscopy (SNOM) fiber coupling incoherent light as point light source.

Automated summary

We design, build, and calibrate an integrated quantum gas microscope that provides high-resolution imaging of spatial distributions of cold atoms. By fixing all the optical components outside the vacuum chamber, our microscope offers a large numerical aperture and good optical access for atom loading. Furthermore, the special design of the vacuum viewport suppresses window flatness distortion and protects high-resolution imaging from distortions.