Generating two-dimensional quantum gases with high stability

Quantum gas microscopy has enabled the study on intriguing properties of ultracold atoms in optical lattices. It provides the cutting-edge technology for manipulating quantum many-body systems. In such experiments, atoms have to be prepared into a two-dimensional (2D) system for being resolved by microscopes with limited depth of focus. Here we report an experiment on slicing a single layer of the atoms trapped in a few layers of pancake-shaped optical traps to create a 2D system. This technique is implemented with a microwave “knife”, i.e., a microwave field with a frequency defined by the resonant condition with the Zeeman-shifted atomic levels related to a gradient magnetic field. It is crucial to keep a stable preparation of the desired layer to create the 2D quantum gas for future experimental applications. To achieve this, the most important point is to provide a gradient magnetic field with low noises and slow drift in combination with a properly optimized microwave pulse. Monitoring the electric current source and the environmental magnetic field, we applied an actively stabilizing circuit and realized a field drift of 0.042(3) mG/hour. This guarantees creating the single layer of atoms with an efficiency of 99.92(3)% while atoms are hardly seen in other layers within 48 hours, satisfying future experimental demands on studying quantum many-body physics.