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arXiv:2404.09327 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Measurement-induced heating of a trapped ion

A. J. Rasmusson, Ilyoung Jung, Frank G. Schroer, A. Kyprianidis, Philip Richerme

Published Oct 4, 2024• 5 citations
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Abstract

Abstract We experimentally study the heating of trapped atomic ions during measurement of their internal qubit states. During measurement, ions are projected into one of two basis states and discriminated by their state-dependent fluorescence. We observe that ions in the fluorescing state rapidly scatter photons and heat at a rate of n¯˙≳2×104 quanta s−1, which is orders of magnitude faster than typical anomalous ion heating rates. We introduce a quantum trajectory-based framework that accurately reproduces the experimental results and provides a unified description of ion heating for both continuous and discrete sources.

DOI
10.1088/1361-6455/ad838a

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Abstract We experimentally study the heating of trapped atomic ions during measurement of their internal qubit states. During measurement, ions are projected into one of two basis states and discriminated by their state-dependent fluorescence. We observe that ions in the fluorescing state rapidly scatter photons and heat at a rate of n¯˙≳2×104 quanta s−1, which is orders of magnitude faster than typical anomalous ion heating rates. We introduce a quantum trajectory-based framework that accurately reproduces the experimental results and provides a unified description of ion heating for both continuous and discrete sources.
We measure and characterize anomalous motional heating of an atomic ion confined in the lowest quantum levels of a novel rf ion trap that features moveable electrodes. The scaling of heating with electrode proximity is measured, and when the electrodes are cooled from 300 to 150 K, the heating rate is suppressed by an order of magnitude. This provides direct evidence that anomalous motional heating of trapped ions stems from microscopic noisy potentials on the electrodes that are thermally driven. These observations are relevant to decoherence in quantum information processing schemes based on trapped ions and perhaps other charge-based quantum systems.
We have measured motional heating rates of trapped atomic ions, a factor that can influence multi-ion quantum logic gate fidelities. Two simplified techniques were developed for this purpose: one relies on Raman sideband detection implemented with a single laser source, while the second is even simpler and is based on time-resolved fluorescence detection during Doppler recooling. We applied these methods to determine heating rates in a microfrabricated surface-electrode trap made of gold on fused quartz, which traps ions $40\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{m}$ above its surface. Heating rates obtained from the two techniques were found to be in reasonable agreement. In addition, the trap gives rise to a heating rate of $300\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}30\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ for a motional frequency of 5.25MHz5.25\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}5.25MHz, substantially below the trend observed in other traps.
We measure ion heating following transport throughout a Y\mathsf{Y}Y-junction surface-electrode ion trap. By carefully selecting the trap voltage update rate during adiabatic transport along a trap arm, we observe minimal heating relative to the anomalous heating background. Transport through the junction results in an induced heating between 37 and 150 quanta in the axial direction per traverse. To reliably measure heating in this range, we compare the experimental sideband envelope, including up to fourth-order sidebands, to a theoretical model. The sideband envelope method allows us to cover the intermediate heating range inaccessible to the first-order sideband and Doppler recooling methods. We conclude that quantum information processing in this ion trap will likely require sympathetic cooling in order to support high fidelity gates after junction transport.
We experimentally demonstrate a method to determine the temperature of trapped ions which is suitable for monitoring fast thermalization processes. We show that observing and analyzing the lineshape of dark resonances in the fluorescence spectrum provides a temperature measurement which is accurate over a large dynamic range, applied to single ions and small ion crystals. Laser induced fluorescence is detected over a time of only , allowing for rapid determination of the ion temperature. In the measurement range of 10 −1 – mK we reach better than accuracy. Tuning the cooling laser to selected resonance features allows us to control the ion temperatures between mK and more than mK. Experimental work is supported by a solution of the eight-level optical Bloch equations when including the ions' classical motion. This technique paves the way for many experiments, including heat transport in ion strings, heat engines, non-equilibrium thermodynamics or thermometry of large ion crystals.
Cold ions trapped in the vicinity of conductive surfaces experience heating of their oscillatory motion. Typically, the rate of this heating is orders of magnitude larger than expected from electric field fluctuations due to thermal motion of electrons in the conductors. This effect, known as anomalous heating, is not fully understood. One of the open questions is the heating rate's dependence on the ion-electrode separation. We present a direct measurement of this dependence in an ion trap of simple planar geometry. The heating rates are determined by taking images of a single ^{172}Yb^{+} ion's resonance fluorescence after a variable heating time and deducing the trapped ion's temperature from measuring its average oscillation amplitude. Assuming a power law for the heating rate versus ion-surface separation dependence, an exponent of -3.79±0.12 is measured.
Trapped-ion quantum platforms are subject to ``anomalous'' heating due to interactions with electric-field noise sources of nature not yet completely known. There is ample experimental evidence that this noise originates at the surfaces of the trap electrodes, and models assuming fluctuating pointlike dipoles are consistent with observations, but the exact microscopic mechanisms behind anomalous heating remain undetermined. Here we show how a two-ion probe displays a transition in its dissipation properties, enabling experimental access to the mean orientation of the dipoles and the spatial extent of dipole-dipole correlations. This information can be used to test the validity of candidate microscopic models, which predict correlation lengths spanning several orders of magnitude. Furthermore, we propose an experiment to measure these effects with currently available traps and techniques.