Three-Dimensional Trapping of Individual Rydberg Atoms in Ponderomotive Bottle Beam Traps.

We demonstrate three-dimensional trapping of individual Rydberg atoms in holographic optical bottle beam traps. Starting with cold, ground-state Rb-87 atoms held in standard optical tweezers, we excite them to nS(1/2), nP(1/2), or nD(3/2) Rydberg states and transfer them to a hollow trap at 850 nm. For principal quantum numbers 60 <= n <= 90, the measured trapping time coincides with the Rydberg state lifetime in a 300 K environment. We show that these traps are compatible with quantum information and simulation tasks by performing single qubit microwave Rabi flopping, as well as by measuring the interaction-induced, coherent spin-exchange dynamics between two trapped Rydberg atoms separated by 40 mu m. These results will find applications in the realization of high-fidelity quantum simulations and quantum logic operations with Rydberg atoms.