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Physical Review A

Demonstration of motion transduction in a single-ion nonlinear mechanical oscillator

Wei Wan, Han Wu, Liang Chen, Fei Zhou, Shijing Gong, Mang Feng

Published Jun 2, 2014• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A single trapped ion driven away from the equilibrium position behaves like a Duffing oscillator. We demonstrate in a homebuilt surface-electrode trap (SET) the motion transduction of a trapped-ion oscillator from one dimension to another along with amplification of motional amplitudes and energies under the full control of the radio-frequency drive voltage. The phenomena, originated from different layouts and fabrication asymmetry of the SET, can be understood by complicated Duffing nonlinear equations. Our scheme provides an effective mechanism to investigate very complicated nonlinear behavior in trapped-ion setups and is expected to have extensive applications.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.063401

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A single trapped ion driven away from the equilibrium position behaves like a Duffing oscillator. We demonstrate in a homebuilt surface-electrode trap (SET) the motion transduction of a trapped-ion oscillator from one dimension to another along with amplification of motional amplitudes and energies under the full control of the radio-frequency drive voltage. The phenomena, originated from different layouts and fabrication asymmetry of the SET, can be understood by complicated Duffing nonlinear equations. Our scheme provides an effective mechanism to investigate very complicated nonlinear behavior in trapped-ion setups and is expected to have extensive applications.
We study the steady-state motion of a single trapped ion oscillator driven to the nonlinear regime. Damping is achieved via Doppler laser cooling. The ion motion is found to be well described by the Duffing oscillator model with an additional nonlinear damping term. We demonstrate here the unique ability of tuning both the linear as well as the nonlinear damping coefficients by controlling the laser-cooling parameters. Our observations pave the way for the investigation of nonlinear dynamics on the quantum-to-classical interface as well as mechanical noise squeezing in laser-cooling dynamics.
Collective motions and anharmonic oscillations induced by a mixture of two ion species with different masses in a rf ion trap are reported. The absorption spectra of the probing rf power by the resonant oscillations of ion clouds have been observed for several ion species with various mixing ratios. It is shown that significant nonlinear effects manifest themselves strongly when the mass difference is in a certain range. One of such nonlinear effects, the first observation of significant hysteresis in the absorption spectrum of the probing rf field, is understood to be due to the anharmonic force term of the third order induced by the interactions of two ion clouds. The term has been estimated by fitting the observed absorption profile to the approximate solution of Duffing's equation.
A linear radio-frequency Paul trap is traditionally driven with one diagonal pair of electrodes grounded and the other connected to a high-voltage radio-frequency source. This method simplifies impedance matching of the voltage source to the trap. However, for several architectures it leads to increasing the axial micromotion amplitude, for example, when the capacitance between radio-frequency and end-cap electrodes is not negligible. Here, we present a technique to generate two high-voltage radio-frequency signals \SI{180}{\degree} out of phase to drive a linear Paul trap with opposite voltages between neighbouring electrodes. Using this, we have successfully trapped and cooled a chain of Ytterbium ions in a linear radio-frequency Paul trap.
Precise control of charged particles in radio-frequency (Paul) traps requires minimising excess micromotion induced by stray electric fields. We present a method to detect and compensate such fields through amplitude modulation of the radio-frequency trapping field. Modulation at frequencies close to the motional modes of the trapped particle excites coherent motion whose amplitude linearly depends on the stray field. In trapped-ion experiments, this motion can be detected by recording the arrival times of photons scattered during laser cooling. Only a single laser beam is required to resolve fields in multiple directions. In a demonstration using a 88Sr+^{88}\mathrm{Sr}^{+}88Sr+ ion in a surface electrode trap, we achieve a sensitivity of 0.1 V m−1 / Hz0.1\, \mathrm{V}\, \mathrm{m}^{-1}\, /\, \sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}0.1Vm−1/Hz​ and a minimal uncertainty of 0.015 V m−10.015\, \mathrm{V}\, \mathrm{m}^{-1}0.015Vm−1.
One path to realizing systems of trapped atomic ions suitable for large-scale quantum computing and simulation is to create a two-dimensional (2D) array of ion traps. Interactions between nearest-neighbouring ions could then be turned on and off by tuning the ions' relative positions and frequencies. We demonstrate and characterize the operation of a planar-electrode ion-trap array. By driving the trap with a network of phase-locked radio-frequency resonators which provide independently variable voltage amplitudes we vary the position and motional frequency of a Ca + ion in two-dimensions within the trap array. Work on fabricating a miniaturised form of this 2D trap array is also described, which could ultimately provide a viable architecture for large-scale quantum simulations.
We present two methods for characterization of motional-mode configurations that are generally applicable to the weak- and strong-binding limit of single or multiple trapped atomic ions. Our methods are essential to realize control of the individual as well as the common motional degrees of freedom. In particular, when implementing scalable radio-frequency trap architectures with decreasing ion-electrode distances, local curvatures of electric potentials need to be measured and adjusted precisely, e.g., to tune phonon tunneling and control effective spin-spin interaction. We demonstrate both methods using single 25Mg+^{25}\text{Mg}^{+}25Mg+ ions that are individually confined $40\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ above a surface-electrode trap array and prepared close to the ground state of motion in three dimensions.