  Microscopically controlled neutral atoms in optical tweezers and lattices
have led to exciting advances in the study of quantum information and quantum
many-body systems. The light shifts of atomic levels from the trapping
potential in these systems can result in detrimental effects such as
fluctuating dipole force heating, inhomogeneous detunings, and inhibition of
laser cooling, which limits the atomic species that can be manipulated. In
particular, these light shifts can be large enough to prevent loading into
optical tweezers directly from a magneto-optical trap. We present a general
solution to these limitations by loading, cooling, and imaging single atoms
with temporally alternating beams. Because this technique does not depend on
any specific spectral properties, we expect it to enable the optical tweezer
method to control nearly any atomic or molecular species that can be laser
cooled and optically trapped. Furthermore, we present an analysis of the role
of heating and required cooling for single atom tweezer loading.
