Variable electrode micron-scale ion trap

Jonathan David Sterk, T.A. Manning, Le Luo +2 more

Wei Liu, Shuming Chen, Wei Wu

J. Britton, Dietrich G. Leibfried, James A. Beall +13 more

The prospect of building a quantum information processor underlies many recent advances ion trap fabrication techniques. Potentially, a quantum computer could be constructed from a large array of interconnected ion traps. We report on a micrometer-scale ion trap, fabricated from bulk silicon using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) techniques. The trap geometry is relatively simple in that the electrodes lie in a single plane beneath the ions. In such a trap we confine laser-cooled 24Mg+ ions approximately 40 microns above the surface. The fabrication technique and planar electrode geometry together make this approach amenable to scaling up to large trap arrays. In addition we observe that little laser cooling light is scattered by the electrodes.

Timur Abbasov, Sergei A. Zibrov, I. Sherstov

Susanna Todaro, D. H. Slichter, David J. Wineland +2 more

F. Lindenfelser, B. C. Keitch, Daniel Kienzler +5 more

We demonstrate a surface-electrode ion trap fabricated using techniques transferred from the manufacture of photonic-crystal fibres. This provides a relatively straightforward route for realizing traps with an electrode structure on the 100 micron scale with high optical access. We demonstrate the basic functionality of the trap by cooling a single ion to the quantum ground state, allowing us to measure a heating rate from the ground state of 787 ± 24 quanta/s. Variation of the fabrication procedure used here may provide access to traps in this geometry with trap scales between 100 μm and 10 μm.