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SPIE Quantum West

Microfabricated ion traps for quantum information

Melissa Revelle

Published Mar 4, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Surface electrode ion traps offer a clear advantage in quantum information over traditional 4-rod traps by enabling the precise control necessary for manipulating a long chain of ions. At Sandia, we use CMOS compatible fabrication techniques to make these devices more complex and repeatable; a likely necessity when building quantum systems with hundreds or thousands of ions. These techniques grant us access to unique integration capabilities, through which we aim to continuously improve the state-of-the-art of surface ion traps. I will share some examples of our capabilities and recent work on our Phoenix and Peregrine traps which aim to improve the reliability and performance of previous designs. ----------------------- Sandia National Labs is managed and operated by NTESS LLC, a subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. DOE's NNSA under contract DE-NA0003525. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.

DOI
10.1117/12.2622827

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Surface electrode ion traps offer a clear advantage in quantum information over traditional 4-rod traps by enabling the precise control necessary for manipulating a long chain of ions. At Sandia, we use CMOS compatible fabrication techniques to make these devices more complex and repeatable; a likely necessity when building quantum systems with hundreds or thousands of ions. These techniques grant us access to unique integration capabilities, through which we aim to continuously improve the state-of-the-art of surface ion traps. I will share some examples of our capabilities and recent work on our Phoenix and Peregrine traps which aim to improve the reliability and performance of previous designs. ----------------------- Sandia National Labs is managed and operated by NTESS LLC, a subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. DOE's NNSA under contract DE-NA0003525. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.
The Phoenix and Peregrine ion traps are micro-fabricated surface-electrode ion traps based on silicon technology. Both are linear traps using a symmetric 6-rail design with segmented inner and outer control electrodes. The traps are fabricated on Sandia's High Optical Access (HOA) platform to provide good optical access skimming the trap surface. They are packaged in custom ceramic pin or land grid array packages using a 2.54 mm pitch. The Peregrine trap is a surface trap with all electrodes in one plane. The Phoenix trap has the same layout, but with a central through-substrate slot and its inner control electrodes are at a lower metal level. Both traps provide means to measure the substrate temperature and to heat the device by means of integrated aluminum and tungsten wires.
Trapped-ion quantum information experiments have reached ion numbers where precise control of multiple ion chains is necessary, resulting in a growing need for high-performance microfabricated surface traps.With Sandia's High Optical Access (HOA) trap, which boasts high trap frequencies and long trapping times, we have achieved the first single-qubit gates with a diamond norm below a rigorous fault tolerance threshold [1,2], and a two-qubit Mølmer-Sørensen gate [3] with a process fidelity of 99.58(6).We also demonstrate novel control techniques, afforded by precise manipulation over the curvature of the trapping potential, that support continuous rotation of principal axes while maintaining constant secular frequencies.
Current classical computing methods are unable to simulate quantum many-body interactions efficiently.Analog quantum simulators with even small numbers of quantum degrees of freedom are expected to enable the investigation of systems not fully accessible in traditional computing such as condensed-matter systems, quantum chemistry, and material science.Two-dimensional lattices of trapped ions are a good candidate to realize an analog quantum simulator for their addressability, individual control and individual detection.Here, we report on multiple unique lattice surface ion trap designs, microfabricated at Sandia National Laboratories, capable of trapping and interacting up to 4 ions.Ions are held in close proximity in individual all radio-frequency potential minima and interact via their Coulomb repulsion.The Coulomb coupling between ions allows for simulation of spin-spin interactions 1-6 .Control electrodes of the trap can be used to adjust principal axes of the ion's motion and thus enable individual control over the interaction between ions.The lattice trap array architecture tested in this work can be scaled to larger two-dimensional lattices of trapped ions.
Trapped ions are among the top candidates for realizing high fidelity gate operations for quantum computation as well as other applications including quantum simulation and sensing [1]. However, scaling these systems up to the number of qubits required to solve interesting problems with conventional macroscopic traps quickly becomes intractable. To overcome the scalability challenge, advanced microfabrication techniques have been developed to support a variety of complex electrode layouts, allowing for precise and dynamic control of confining potentials. Using Sandia’s microfabricated surface ion traps, which feature low heating rates, high trap frequencies, and long trapping times, we demonstrate novel classical control techniques that employ parametric voltage solutions for elegant composition of shuttling operations and accurate control over the curvature of the confining potential. To demonstrate the viability of Sandia's microfabricated ion traps for quantum information processing, we’ve realized of high-fidelity single-qubit gates below a rigorous fault tolerance threshold for general noise [2,3] and two-qubit Mølmer-Sørensen gates with a process fidelity of 99.58(6)%.
Trapped ions within Paul traps have shown to be a promising architecture in the realisation of a quantum information processor together with the ability of providing quantum simulations. Linear Paul traps have demonstrated long coherence times with ions being well isolated from the environment, single and multi-qubit gates and the high fidelity detection of states. The scalability to large number of qubits, incorporating all the previous achievements requires an array of linear ion traps. Microfabrication techniques allow for fabrication and micron level accuracy of the trap electrode dimensions through photolithography techniques. The first part of this thesis presents the experiential setup and trapping of Yb+ ions needed to test large ion trap arrays. This include vacuum systems that can host advanced symmetric and asymmetric ion traps with up to 90 static voltage control electrodes. Demonstration of a single trapped Yb+ ion within a two-layer macroscopic ion trap is presented. with an ion-electrode distance of 310(10) µm. The anomalous heating rate and spectral noise density of the trap was measured, a main form of decoherence within ion traps. The second half of this thesis presents the design and fabrication of multi-layer asymmetric ion traps. This allows for isolated electrodes that cannot be accessed via surface pathways, allowing for higher density of electrodes as well as creating novel trap designs that allow for the potential of quantum simulations to be demonstrated. These include two-dimensional lattices and ring trap designs in which the isolated electrodes provide more control in the ion position. For the microfabrication of these traps I present a novel high-aspect ratio electroplated electrode design that provides shielding of the dielectric layer. This provides a means to mitigate stray electric field due to charge build up on the dielectric surfaces. Electrical testing of the trap structures was performed to test bulk breakdown and surface flashover of the ion trap architectures. Results showed sufficient isolation between electrodes for both radio frequency and static breakdown. Surface flashover voltage measurements over the dielectric layer showed an improvement of more than double over previous results using a new fabrication technique. This will allow for more powerful ion trap chips needed for the next generation of microfabricated ion trap arrays for scalable quantum technologies.
As trapped ion systems add more ions to allow for increasingly sophisticated quantum processing and sensing capabilities, the traditional optical-mechanical laboratory infrastructure that make such systems possible are in some cases the limiting factor in further growth of the systems. One promising solution is to integrate as many, if not all, optical components such as waveguides and gratings, single-photon detectors, and high extinction ratio optical switches/modulators either into ion traps themselves or into auxiliary devices that can be easily integrated with ion traps. Here we report on recent efforts at Sandia National Laboratories to include integrated photonics in our surface ion trap platforms.