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⚛️ Rydberg Blockade in an Atom Array

Discover how strong van der Waals interactions between highly excited Rydberg atoms suppress double excitation within a tunable blockade radius, producing collective Rabi oscillations across a lattice.

Quantum Physics3DModerate60 FPS

The simulation shows a programmable array of atoms in optical tweezers being driven toward Rydberg excitation, illustrating how neighboring atoms within the blockade radius share a single collective excitation instead of exciting independently.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the interatomic spacing slider to shrink or grow the blockade radius relative to the lattice spacing, and use the Rabi drive control to watch collective √N Rabi oscillations emerge within blockaded clusters.

💡 Did You Know?

Because Rydberg interaction strength scales roughly as the 11th power of the principal quantum number, choosing a slightly higher Rydberg state can increase the blockade radius by a large factor without changing the physical atom spacing at all.

⚙ Under the hood

rydberg atomsquantum blockadequantum computingatom arraysvan der waals interactioncollective excitationcold atomsquantum simulation

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install