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Physical Review A

Planar ion microtraps

Richard G. Brewer, Ralph G. DeVoe, R. Kallenbach

Published Dec 1, 1992• 64 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Planar quadrupole ion traps have been analyzed through numerical and analytic solutions of Laplace's equation. These involve either one or more conducting rings or their analogs, a hole in one or more conducting sheets. The leading terms in the potential are harmonic, corresponding to the Paul trap, but with coefficients that reduce their efficiency and for some traps, the anharmonic terms can be suppressed to eighth-order. Stable ion trapping is predicted for all electrode configurations possessing radial and axial symmetry. A three-hole microtrap with an inner hole radius of 80 \ensuremath{\mu}m trapped from one to many (dense clouds) laser-cooled ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}$ ions where the two-ion distance is compressed to 1 \ensuremath{\mu}m, allowing new experiments in quantum optics. Also, arrays of traps for optical clocks are contemplated using photolithographic fabrication.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.46.r6781

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Planar quadrupole ion traps have been analyzed through numerical and analytic solutions of Laplace's equation. These involve either one or more conducting rings or their analogs, a hole in one or more conducting sheets. The leading terms in the potential are harmonic, corresponding to the Paul trap, but with coefficients that reduce their efficiency and for some traps, the anharmonic terms can be suppressed to eighth-order. Stable ion trapping is predicted for all electrode configurations possessing radial and axial symmetry. A three-hole microtrap with an inner hole radius of 80 \ensuremath{\mu}m trapped from one to many (dense clouds) laser-cooled Ba+{\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}Ba+ ions where the two-ion distance is compressed to 1 \ensuremath{\mu}m, allowing new experiments in quantum optics. Also, arrays of traps for optical clocks are contemplated using photolithographic fabrication.
We report the laser cooling and trapping of barium ions in a novel planar Paul trap. Unlike other rf quadrupole traps, the electrodes of a planar Paul trap are confined to one or more parallel planes. They may therefore be constructed on a micrometer scale by the same photolithographic techniques used for semiconductor devices. Such devices are under construction in our laboratory. Micro-traps permit entirely new studies, for example, superradiance of a few ions, which occurs as ion-ion distances approach one wavelength of light. Photolithography can also generate an array of traps on a single substrate for an atomic clock. Our traps consist of one or more parallel planes, one above the other, each plane having either a conducting ring or a hole in a conducting sheet. Thus, a ring or a hole results in a potential well for trapping. A three-ring design produces a quadrupole potential that is harmonic up to eighth-order for a particular choice of ring diameters and spacings. Three-hole traps have been constructed with inner hole radii ranging from 50 to 400 μm, and both single barium ions and clouds have been observed.
We report on development of a miniature linear rf ion trap and preliminary efforts to trap and laser-cool {sup 24}Mg{sup +} ions. This trap has a radial dimension of 50 {mu}m, one tenth the size of our previous trap. The rms confinement of a trapped ion scales as R{sup -2}, where R is the trap radius, so tight confinement of ions is possible at a modest rf voltage. Although the three-dimensional trapping potential for our trap cannot be calculated analytically, it can be described in terms of dimensionless parameters, measured by studying macroscopic charged particles in a much larger model of the trap. We expect that with this trap it will be possible to achieve secular frequencies high enough for resolved-sideband cooling of light ions using allowed dipole transitions. This will make it much easier to perform experiments on the quantum motion of trapped ions. This trap uses a two-wire design rather than the more common four-wire one, so the trap electrodes occlude a much smaller solid angle than either a four-wire linear trap or the more common quadrupole trap. Thus, it will be possible to couple optical devices, such as high-finesse cavities, much more efficiently to trapped ions.
In some recently proposed experiments using ion traps, a Paul trap of conventional size and design is insufficient. We have constructed a miniature Paul-Straubel trap. It has a small elliptic ring ( approximately 0.2 mm) and three pairs of planar electrodes ( approximately 2 cm part) arranged so that they form a cube. The two conventional end-cap electrodes are replaced by the six planar electrodes. The ring is heatable to a high temperature for improving the uniformity of the dc potential on the ring surface. With this trap, we hope to do such fundamental studies as the true zero-point confinement of a single ion.
Laser-cooled trapped ions platform is one of the best candidates for the development of future quantum computing. This has generated a major worldwide research effort aimed at scaling and integrating trapping devices. As part of this effort, we are developing miniature atomic ion traps in the laboratory: Paul linear surface traps manufactured in collaboration with Nanyang Technology University and the Microelectronics Institute of Singapore. An original feature of the manufacturing process is that all the electrical contacts of the trap electrodes are made through the Silicon substrate (TSV: through silicon vias). In this way, the wire-bondings usually soldered directly to the electrodes can be offset or completely eliminated [1]. This opens the way to complex architectures, in particular cylindrically symmetrical ring traps, which cannot be made with surface connections that would break the desired symmetry. The trapping and laser cooling of ions in cylindrically symmetrical linear Paul traps (called "ion storage rings" in their macroscopic version, diameters of around 100 mm) was demonstrated in pioneering work at Garching [2] and subsequently extended to microfabricated traps (multilayer technology) at Sandia National Labs (diameter 2.5 mm) [3] and Berkeley (diameter 95 μm) [4]. These devices are of interest because, in the absence of defects, they enable rotational symmetry for the trapped ions and thus periodic boundary conditions for the confined cold ion system (Coulomb crystal). They are also candidates for observing and manipulating the rotational quantum state of trapped ion ensembles [4]. We will present our latest results concerning the performance of TSV surface ring traps (diameters between 150 and 210 μm) manufactured in Singapore. In particular, we loaded these traps with Dopplercooled 88Sr+ ions (from a single ion to several hundreds). Laser cooling and image acquisition enable us to estimate the defects of the trapping potential with respect to perfect rotational symmetry. The application of DC voltages to a set of segmented electrodes then makes it possible to compensate for most of these defects, which nevertheless remain the major problem to be solved in order to achieve sub milikelvin free motion.
We present the single-particle stability diagram for the radial motion in a linear Paul trap in a situation where the applied axial dc potential gives rise to a harmonic defocusing radial potential. Although most linear Paul trap experiments have been conducted in a regime where this approximation is reasonably valid, the effect of the axial confinement on the stability of the radial motion has not previously been analyzed. The defocusing effect in both radial directions leads to a stability diagram different from that of the two-dimensional quadrupole mass filter, and hence points toward new studies of few ion dynamics. Expressions for the effective or pseudopotentials for one and two charged particles are presented and discussed.
RF quadrupole linear Paul traps are versatile tools in quantum physics experiments. Linear Paul traps with blade-shaped electrodes have the advantages of larger solid angles for fluorescence collection. But with these kinds of traps, the existence of higher-order anharmonic terms of the trap potentials can cause large heating rate for the trapped ions. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the dependence of higher-order terms of trap potentials on the geometry of blade-shaped traps, and offer an optimized design. A modified blade electrodes trap is proposed to further reduce higher-order anharmonic terms while still retaining large fluorescence collection angle.