Nanophotonic cavity QED with individually trapped atoms

The realization of strong interactions between single photons and single atoms is a central theme in quantum optics and an essential prerequisite for future quantum applications such as quantum networks. We achieve such interactions by using a hybrid approach in which we couple individually trapped atoms to nanophotonic crystal cavities [1].  Here we present our methods for trapping and cooling two atoms near a nanophotonic cavity and our progress towards preparing an entangled state of two atoms mediated by the cavity photons. Our experiment aims at demonstrating scalable and efficient quantum gates [2] with applications in integrated quantum networks. [1] J. D. Thompson, T. G. Tiecke, N. P. de Leon, J. Feist, A. V. Akimov, M. Gullans, A. S. Zibrov, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, Science 340, 1202 (2013) [2] T. G. Tiecke, J. D. Thompson, N. P. de Leon, L. R. Liu, V. Vuletic and M. D. Lukin, Nature 508, 241 (2014)