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Chinese Physics B

New designed helical resonator to improve measurement accuracy of magic radio frequency

Tian Guo, Peiliang Liu, Chaohong Lee

Published Apr 22, 2022• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Based upon the new designed helical resonator, the resonant radio frequency (RF) for trapping ions can be consecutively adjusted in a large range (about 12 MHz to 29 MHz) with high Q-factors (above 300). We analyze the helical resonator with a lumped element circuit model and find that the theoretical results fit well with the experimental data. With our resonator system, the resonant frequency near magic RF frequency (where the scalar Stark shift and the second-order Doppler shift due to excess micromotion cancel each other) can be continuously changed at kHz level. For 88Sr+ ion, compared to earlier results, the measurement accuracy of magic RF frequency can be improved by an order of magnitude upon rough calculation, and therefore the net micromotion frequency shifts can be further reduced. Also, the differential static scalar polarizability Δα 0 of clock transition can be experimentally measured more accurately.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ac6944

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Based upon the new designed helical resonator, the resonant radio frequency (RF) for trapping ions can be consecutively adjusted in a large range (about 12 MHz to 29 MHz) with high Q-factors (above 300). We analyze the helical resonator with a lumped element circuit model and find that the theoretical results fit well with the experimental data. With our resonator system, the resonant frequency near magic RF frequency (where the scalar Stark shift and the second-order Doppler shift due to excess micromotion cancel each other) can be continuously changed at kHz level. For 88Sr+ ion, compared to earlier results, the measurement accuracy of magic RF frequency can be improved by an order of magnitude upon rough calculation, and therefore the net micromotion frequency shifts can be further reduced. Also, the differential static scalar polarizability Δα 0 of clock transition can be experimentally measured more accurately.
A high-performance frequency standard based on (199)Hg(+) ions confined in a hybrid radio frequency (RF)/dc linear ion trap is demonstrated. This trap permits storage of large numbers of ions with reduced susceptibility to the second-order Doppler effect caused by the RF confining fields. A 160-mHz-wide atomic resonance line for the 40.5-GHz clock transition is used to steer the output of a 5-mHz crystal oscillator to obtain a stability of 2 x 10(exp -15) for 24,000-second averaging times. Measurements with a 37-mHz line width for the Hg(+) clock transition demonstrate that the inherent stability for this frequency standard is better than 1 x 10(exp -15) at 10,000-second averaging times.
We describe recent experiments and results which show the effective cancellation of micromotion induced systematic shifts for the 445-THz reference transition in a trapped and laser cooled88Sr+single ion reference. Using two different ion trap systems based on a Paul and endcap design, the critical or magic frequency at which micromotion effects cancel has been effectively measured at 14.4 MHz. This work also allows an improved determination of the polarizability difference of the ground and excited states and an improvement in the evaluated blackbody shifts to the low 10-17level.
A new method is proposed to measure unknown amplitudes of radio frequency (RF) voltages applied to ion traps, using a pre-calibrated voltage divider with RF shielding. In contrast to previous approaches that estimate the applied voltage by comparing the measured secular frequencies with a numerical simulation, we propose using a pre-calibrated voltage divider to determine the absolute amplitude of large RF voltages amplified by a helical resonator. The proposed method does not require measurement of secular frequencies and completely removes uncertainty caused by limitations of numerical simulations. To experimentally demonstrate our method, we first obtained a functional relation between measured secular frequencies and large amplitudes of RF voltages using the calibrated voltage divider. A comparison of measured relations and simulation results without any fitting parameters confirmed the validity of the proposed method. Our method can be applied to most ion trap experiments. In particular, it will be an essential tool for surface ion traps which are extremely vulnerable to unknown large RF voltages and for improving the accuracy of numerical simulations for ion trap experiments.
Progress of the 40Ca+ ion optical clock based on the 42S1/2 – 3d 2D5/2 electric quadrupole transition is reported. By setting the drive frequency to the “magic” frequency Ω 0, the frequency uncertainty caused by the scalar Stark shift and second-order Doppler shift induced by micromotion is reduced to the 10−19 level. By precisely measuring the differential static scalar polarizability Δα 0, the uncertainty due to the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift (coefficient) is reduced to the 10−19 level. With the help of a second-order integrating servo algorithm, the uncertainty due to the servo error is reduced to the 10−18 level. The total fractional uncertainty of the 40Ca+ ion optical clock is then improved to 2.2× 10−17, whereas this value is mainly restricted by the uncertainty of the BBR shift due to temperature fluctuations. The state preparation is introduced together with improvements in the pulse sequence, and furthermore, a better signal to noise ratio (SNR) and less dead time are achieved. The clock stability of a single clock is improved to 4.8 × 10 − 15 / τ ( in seconds ) .
We recently reported a 5×10-17level frequency comparison of two40Ca+optical clocks, one of which has fractional frequency uncertainty of 3.4×10-17, limited by the BBR effect. Here we present progress towards a40Ca+optical clock with uncertainty at the 10-18level. The differential static scalar polarizability Δα0 of the40Ca+ion clock transition is obtained by precisely measuring the “magic” rf drive frequency. Δα0 is measured as -7.2653(44)x10-40J m2/V2, the blackbody radiation shift is then calculated to be 0.3790(2) Hz at 300 K. The contribution of the blackbody shift coefficient to the uncertainty of the optical clock at room temperature is reduced to 5.6×10-19, the excess micromotion induced clock uncertainty is also reduced to the 10-19level by choosing the appropriate trap drive frequency. With a suppression of the BBR field temperature uncertainty to the sub-Kelvin level and improved clock stability, a robust, relatively low-cost40Ca+ion clock with uncertainty at 10-18level can be made.
This paper reviews the basic principles of ion storage and cooling in the first place, and presents simulation result using a molecular dynamics method on ion distribution and RF heating rate. Based on this result, we evaluate the influence of RF heating effect and micromotions of the ions on frequency standards. Compared to conventional quadrupole trap, a 12-pole trap is able to reduce the RF heating rate of the ion cloud and to enable narrowing the linewidth with the Ramsey method. Moreover, the effective potential in the 12-pole trap has a flat bottom and a steep wall, which is capable of reducing the second order Doppler effect caused by the micromotions and thus helpful to enhance the accuracy and stability of the clock. At last, we review previous work of JPL on high performance, 199Hg+ ion clocks and our present work of laser-cooled, 113Cd+ ion clock based on the multipole trap.