Coherent Control of the Fine-Structure Qubit in a Single Alkaline-Earth Atom

We report on the first realization of a novel neutral atom qubit encoded in the spin-orbit coupled metastable states ^3P₀ and ^3P₂ of a single ^88Sr atom trapped in an optical tweezer. Raman coupling of the qubit states promises rapid single-qubit rotations on par with the fast Rydberg-mediated two-body gates. We demonstrate preparation, readout, and coherent control of the qubit. In addition to driving Rabi oscillations bridging an energy gap of more than 17 THz using a pair of phase-locked clock lasers, we also carry out Ramsey spectroscopy to extract the transverse qubit coherence time T₂. When the tweezer is tuned into magic trapping conditions, which is achieved in our setup by tuning the tensor polarizability of the ^3P₂ state via an external control magnetic field, we measure T₂=1. 2 ms. A microscopic quantum mechanical model is used to simulate our experiments including dominant noise sources. We identify the main constraints limiting the observed coherence time and project improvements to our system in the immediate future. Our Letter opens the door for a so-far-unexplored qubit encoding concept for neutral atom-based quantum computing.