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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Improved rf Tolerance of Trap-Integrated Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors for Trapped-Ion Qubit State Readout

Benedikt Hampel, D. H. Slichter, Dietrich G. Leibfried, Richard P. Mirin, Sae Woo Nam, Varun Boehm Verma

Published Jan 1, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The performance of ion-trap-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for trapped-ion qubit readout is significantly i mpacted b y r f trapping fields. We demonstrate an electrically-shielded trap-integrated detector with substantially improved rf tolerance.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_si.2022.stu4f.6

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Atomic ions can be trapped in vacuum with dc and rf electric potentials generated by surface electrode ion traps, and used as qubits in quantum computing applications. Qubit state preparation and control is usually accomplished with laser light while the qubit state readout is achieved by observing qubit-state-dependent fluorescence from the ion while driving an optical cycling transition. The monolithic integration of optical waveguides and single-photon detectors into the ion trap itself provides both light delivery and fluorescence photon counting capability, offering benefits for scaling in trapped ion quantum computing by eliminating the need for free-space optical access to the trap. One promising candidate for integrated high-fidelity trapped-ion qubit state readout are superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). However, the joint integration of photonics and superconducting detectors into ion trap chips presents challenges for their design, fabrication, and operation. In this work, we present our progress on the integration of SNSPDs into linear ion traps with integrated photonics designed for Ca+ qubits.
We report high-fidelity state readout of a trapped ion qubit using a trap-integrated photon detector. We determine the hyperfine qubit state of a single ^{9}Be^{+} ion held in a surface-electrode rf ion trap by counting state-dependent ion fluorescence photons with a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector fabricated into the trap structure. The average readout fidelity is 0.9991(1), with a mean readout duration of 46 μs, and is limited by the polarization impurity of the readout laser beam and by off-resonant optical pumping. Because there are no intervening optical elements between the ion and the detector, we can use the ion fluorescence as a self-calibrated photon source to determine the detector quantum efficiency and its dependence on photon incidence angle and polarization.