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An ion trap built with photonic crystal fibre technology

Frieder Lindenfelser, B. C. Keitch, Daniel Kienzler, Dmitry S. Bykov, Patrick Uebel, Markus Alexander Schmidt, Philip St.J. Russell, Jonathan Home

Published Mar 1, 2015• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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 mu m and 10 mu m. (C) 2015 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

DOI
10.3929/ethz-b-000099906

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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 mu m and 10 mu m. (C) 2015 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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.
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.
Individual laser-cooled 24Mg+ ions are confined in a linear Paul trap with a novel geometry where gold electrodes are located in a single plane and the ions are trapped 40 microm above this plane. The relatively simple trap design and fabrication procedure are important for large-scale quantum information processing (QIP) using ions. Measured ion motional frequencies are compared to simulations. Measurements of ion recooling after cooling is temporarily suspended yield a heating rate of approximately 5 motional quanta per millisecond for a trap frequency of 2.83 MHz, sufficiently low to be useful for QIP.
We demonstrate trapping in a surface-electrode ion trap fabricated in a 90-nm CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) foundry process utilizing the top metal layer of the process for the trap electrodes. The process includes doped active regions and metal interconnect layers, allowing for co-fabrication of standard CMOS circuitry as well as devices for optical control and measurement. With one of the interconnect layers defining a ground plane between the trap electrode layer and the p-type doped silicon substrate, ion loading is robust and trapping is stable. We measure a motional heating rate comparable to those seen in surface-electrode traps of similar size. This demonstration of scalable quantum computing hardware utilizing a commercial CMOS process opens the door to integration and co-fabrication of electronics and photonics for large-scale quantum processing in trapped-ion arrays.
Abstract Scaling trapped-ion quantum computing will require robust trapping of at least hundreds of ions over long periods, while increasing the complexity and functionality of the trap itself. Symmetric three-dimensional (3D) structures enable high trap depth, but microfabrication techniques are generally better suited to planar structures that produce less ideal conditions for trapping. We present an ion trap fabricated on stacked eight-inch wafers in a large-scale micro-electro-mechanical system microfabrication process that provides reproducible traps at a large volume. Electrodes are patterned on the surfaces of two opposing wafers bonded to a spacer, forming a 3D structure with 2.5 μm standard deviation in alignment across the stack. We implement a design achieving a trap depth of 1 eV for a 40Ca+ ion held at 200 μm from either electrode plane. We characterize traps, achieving measurement agreement with simulations to within ±5% for mode frequencies spanning 0.6–3.8 MHz, and evaluate stray electric field across multiple trapping sites. We measure motional heating rates over an extensive range of trap frequencies, and temperatures, observing 40 phonons/s at 1 MHz and 185 K. This fabrication method provides a highly scalable approach for producing a new generation of 3D ion traps.
The controlled emission and absorption of single photons is an important enabling technology in the fields of quantum communication, cryptography and computing. We have realised a novel single photon source, based on a miniature ‘endcap’ ion trap with integrated optical fibres. To minimise distortion of the trapping field the fibres are tightly integrated and recessed within the two hollow cylindrical rf electrodes of the trap. This allows us to bring the fibres to within approximately 300 µm of the trapped ion. With the fibres in place we are able to collect the ion’s fluorescence using no further optics. In this thesis the ion trap is fully characterised, and the quantum nature of the light demonstrated in the results of a variant on the Hanbury Brown-Twiss photon-correlation experiment. The scheme will ultimately be extended to implement a coherent ion-photon interface through strong coupling cavity-QED. Towards this end, an ultra-high-finesse cavity has been designed and fabricated by laser-machining and coating surfaces with a range of radii of curvature on the end facets of the fibres. To improve the stability and precision manipulation of the cavity in-vacuum, an entirely new trap has been designed and built. Finally, the current status of the fibre cavity and the outlook for the experiment are presented.