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arXiv:1009.2834 · New Journal of Physics

Fabrication and heating rate study of microscopic surface electrode ion traps

Nikos Daniilidis, Suresh Narayanan, Sönke Möller, Robert Clark, Tony E. Lee, Peter Leek, Andreas J. Wallraff, St Schulz, Ferdinand Schmidt‐Kaler, Hartmut Häffner

Published Jan 24, 2011• 100 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report heating rate measurements in a microfabricated gold-on-sapphire surface electrode ion trap with a trapping height of approximately 240 μm. Using the Doppler recooling method, we characterize the trap heating rates over an extended region of the trap. The noise spectral density of the trap falls in the range of noise spectra reported in ion traps at room temperature. We find that during the first months of operation, the heating rates increase by approximately one order of magnitude. The increase in heating rates is largest in the ion-loading region of the trap, providing a strong hint that surface contamination plays a major role for excessive heating rates. We discuss data found in the literature and the possible relation of anomalous heating to sources of noise and dissipation in other systems, namely impurity atoms adsorbed onto metal surfaces and amorphous dielectrics.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/13/1/013032

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We present measurements of trapped-ion motional-state heating rates in niobium and gold surface-electrode ion traps over a range of trap-electrode temperatures from approximately 4 K to room temperature (295 K) in a single apparatus.Using the sideband-ratio technique after resolved-sideband cooling of single ions to the motional ground state, we find low-temperature heating rates more than two orders of magnitude below the room-temperature values and approximately equal to the lowest measured heating rates in similarly sized cryogenic traps. We find similar behavior in the two very different electrode materials, suggesting that the anomalous heating process is dominated by non-material-specific surface contaminants. Through precise control of the temperature of cryopumping surfaces, we also identify conditions under which elastic collisions with the background gas can lead to an apparent steady heating rate, despite rare collisions.
We report measurement of heating rates of 40 C a + ions confined in our home-made microscopic surface-electrode trap by a Doppler recooling method. The ions are trapped with approximately 800 μ m above the surface, and are subjected to heating due to various noises in the trap. There are 3–5 ions involved to measure the heating rates precisely and efficiently. We show the heating rates in variance with the number and the position of the ions as well as the radio-frequency power, which are helpful for understanding the trap imperfection.
Dense arrays of trapped ions provide one way of scaling up ion trap quantum information processing. However, miniaturization of ion traps is currently limited by sharply increasing motional state decoherence at sub-100 mum ion-electrode distances. We characterize heating rates in cryogenically cooled surface-electrode traps, with characteristic sizes in the 75 to 150 mum range. Upon cooling to 6 K, the measured rates are suppressed by 7 orders of magnitude, 2 orders of magnitude below previously published data of similarly sized traps operated at room temperature. The observed noise depends strongly on the fabrication process, which suggests further improvements are possible.
Abstract Ions in surface-electrode ion traps are susceptible to heating due to various noise sources, which can degrade coherence and fidelity. This study investigates the heating mechanisms in surface-electrode ion traps, with a focus on the role of dielectric materials and the effectiveness of shielding techniques. Using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and finite element simulations, we demonstrate that a metallic shielding layer beneath the dielectric layer can reduce the heating rate by five orders of magnitude. Additionally, indenting the dielectric layer supporting the electrodes further decreases the heating rate by minimizing the exposed area in the ion’s field of view. Experimental results validate these findings, showing a three-order-of-magnitude reduction in heating rates for traps with a shielding layer. Our work provides a comprehensive methodology for assessing and minimizing dielectric heating, offering practical design insights for improving the performance of trapped ion quantum systems.
Motional heating of ions in microfabricated traps is one of the open challenges hindering experimental realizations of large-scale quantum processing devices. Recently, a series of measurements of the heating rates in surface-electrode ion traps characterized their frequency, distance, and temperature dependencies, but our understanding of the microscopic origin of this noise remains incomplete. In this work we develop a theoretical model for the electric field noise which is associated with a random distribution of adsorbed atoms on the trap electrode surface. By using first-principles calculations of the fluctuating dipole moments of the adsorbed atoms we evaluate the distance, frequency, and temperature dependence of the resulting electric field fluctuation spectrum. Our theory reproduces correctly the ${d}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ dependence with distance of the ion from the electrode surface and calculates the noise spectrum beyond the standard scenario of two-level fluctuators by incorporating all the relevant vibrational states. Our model predicts a regime of 1/f1/f1/f noise which commences at roughly the frequency of the fundamental phonon transition rate and a thermally activated noise spectrum which for higher temperatures exhibits a crossover as a function of frequency.
Electric-field noise is a major source of motional heating in trapped-ion quantum computation. While the influence of trap-electrode geometries on electric-field noise has been studied in patch potential and surface adsorbate models, only smooth surfaces are accounted for by current theory. The effects of roughness, a ubiquitous feature of surface electrodes, are poorly understood. We investigate its impact on electric-field noise by deriving a rough-surface Green's function and evaluating its effects on adsorbate-surface binding energies. At cryogenic temperatures, heating-rate contributions from adsorbates are predicted to exhibit an exponential sensitivity to local surface curvature, leading to either a large net enhancement or suppression over smooth surfaces. For typical experimental parameters, orders-of-magnitude variations in total heating rates can occur depending on the spatial distribution of adsorbates. Through careful engineering of electrode surface profiles, our results suggests that heating rates can be tuned over orders of magnitudes.