Band and correlated insulators of cold fermions in a mesoscopic lattice

Understand

We investigate the transport properties of neutral, fermionic atoms passing through a one-dimensional quantum wire containing a mesoscopic lattice.

• The lattice is realized by projecting individually controlled, thin optical barriers on top of a ballistic conductor.
• Building an increasingly longer lattice, one site after another, we observe and characterize the emergence of a band insulating phase, demonstrating control over quantum-coherent transport.
• We explore the influence of atom-atom interactions and show that the insulating state persists as contact interactions are tuned from moderately to strongly attractive.