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Phase-stable injection-locked laserat 674 nm for manipulating trappedstrontium ions

Isaline Duperon

Published Jan 1, 2026• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

For optical qubit encoding, laser phase noise limits the coherence time for qubit manipulations.In this thesis, we address this challenge by replicating a low-phase-noise laser system for qubit manipulation of trapped ions in a cryogenic environment. Using injection locking technology, we inject a laser diode with another laser, ensuring the replicated light retains the same spectral properties. We describe the implementation of this technique, analyse its impact on the laser spectrum, and validate it by comparing its coherence time on a trapped-ion qubit with the previously used laser.Our results demonstrate that the new laser system preserves the coherence time achieved with the seed laser, with a qubit coherence time of $T_{coh}= \SI{2.52\pm0.15}{\milli\second} $, paving the way for scalable and robust quantum computing and simulation in the cryogenic setup. In the future, the laser phase noise may be further reduced by spectral filtering techniques with a narrowband optical cavity. This work contributes to overtake one of the key obstacles in trapped-ion quantum computation: having long qubit coherence time.

Related papers

A low phase noise cavity transmission self-injection locked laser system for atomic physics experiments

Ludwig Krinner, Kai Dietze, Lennart Pelzer +2 more

Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits for applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. Stabilisation of the laser to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth and high spectral purity. However, widely-used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high fidelity qubit manipulation. Here we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system utilizing a medium finesse cavity. The cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, but at the same time acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$-ion as a spectrum analyser. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between -110 dBc/Hz and -120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates in using diode lasers with applications in quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation and quantum computation.

arXiv:2311.03461•Nov 6, 2023•2 citations

Low phase noise cavity transmission self-injection locked diode laser system for atomic physics experiments

Ludwig Krinner, Kai Dietze, Lennart Pelzer +2 more

Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and for the coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits in applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. While the stabilization of such lasers to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth, the widely used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high-fidelity qubit manipulation. In this paper, we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system that utilizes a high-finesse cavity. This cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, it also acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped 40 Ca + -ion as a spectrum analyzer. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between −110 dBc/Hz and −120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates when using diode lasers in applications involving quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation, and quantum computation.

Optics Express•Apr 2, 2024•13 citations

Trapped Ion Qubit Gates and Entanglement Driven by an Integrated Photonic Laser

Chris Caron, Zhenyu Wei, Andrei Isichenko +8 more

Trapped ions are a leading technology for quantum computing, but their reliance on bespoke tabletop laser and optical systems remains a major obstacle to scaling and robustness. Integrated silicon nitride lasers, compatible with future monolithic integration with surface electrode ion traps, have recently demonstrated frequency-selective qubit state preparation and measurement as well as interrogation of an optical clock transition. However, coherent qubit gates impose even more stringent requirements on laser phase noise, and their implementation with integrated laser sources has remained an outstanding challenge. Here, we use a visible-wavelength integrated Brillouin laser stabilized to an integrated coil resonator to drive coherent single- and two-qubit gates with \Sr optical qubits. We measure an average single-qubit fidelity of $99.61\%\pm 0.03\%$ per Clifford gate with randomized benchmarking and use a two-qubit Mølmer-Sørensen interaction to generate an entangled Bell state with a fidelity of $92.35\% \pm 1.50\%$. The qubit exhibits a bare Ramsey coherence time of $659 \pm 9~μ$s, more than a tenfold improvement over our previous implementation, which extends to $1.750 \pm 0.033$~ms with an echo. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that integrated visible-wavelength narrow-linewidth photonic lasers can meet the phase-noise requirements for coherent quantum logic with trapped ion optical qubits, providing a path for scalable optical systems integrated within trapped ion quantum processors.

quant-pharXiv:2609.07708•Sep 8, 2026•0 citations

Improved laser-filtering scheme for quantum manipulations with the 171 Yb + optical qubit

Nikita V. Semenin, Ilia V. Zalivako, Vasilii N. Smirnov +7 more

We report on a laser-frequency-stabilization and phase-noise-filtering scheme at 871 nm for high-quality quantum operations with an optical ${}^{2}{\mathrm{S}}_{1/2}$--${}^{2}{\mathrm{D}}_{3/2}$ qubit in the ${}^{171}\mathrm{Yb}{}^{+}$ ion. The phase noise of the laser field in a frequency range close to the trapped ion's secular frequencies (0.5--2 MHz) causes undesirable excitations and thus reduces the fidelities of both single- and two-qubit gates. The most common way to overcome this problem is to filter this noise by passing the laser light through a cavity that suppresses high-frequency phase noise and provides a pure laser spectrum. Usually, the same cavity also serves as a reference for long-term frequency stabilization. We propose and characterize an improved laser-stabilization scheme consisting of (i) a reference laser locked to a high-finesse optical cavity providing a narrow linewidth and long-term frequency stability and (ii) a main laser locked to a tunable medium-finesse cavity for phase-noise filtering. The phase locking of the medium-finesse cavity resonance to the reference laser transfers its long-term stability to the main laser. This approach allows independent optimization of both the phase-noise filtering and long-term frequency-stabilization processes, as well as ensuring the robustness of the setup. The resulting laser spectrum is characterized by direct spectroscopy of an ${}^{171}\mathrm{Yb}{}^{+}$ ion in a linear Paul trap. We estimate the expected two-qubit gate infidelity with the filtered laser field to be well below 1%.

Physical Review Applied•Mar 26, 2025•1 citation

Pound-Drever-Hall Feedforward for Trapped-Ion Optical Qubits

Jia-Yang Gao, Jianwei Lee, Morteza Ahmadi +1 more

Laser phase noise is one of the limiting factors that dictate gate fidelities and coherence times in trapped-ion quantum systems. Previous studies have reported that when the Rabi frequency of an ion qubit is close to the servo-bump phase-noise frequency, the driving laser limits the fidelity and coherence time. This issue has typically been mitigated by choosing a Rabi frequency outside the servo-bump region. However, this constrains the usable range of gate speeds and can limit the achievable fidelity. To address this issue, we developed an active phase-noise stabilization system for a barium-ion optical-qubit laser at 1762 nm, employing a fiber electro-optic modulator (EOM) with an electrical feedforward servo. Our results demonstrate that this setup, based on the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) feedforward method, can suppress servo-bump phase noise by 15 dB near the bump peak frequency in our locking system. The laser phase noise is analyzed using delayed self-heterodyne interferometry (DSHI). We further tested the stabilized laser on an optical qubit and observed a clear improvement in coherence time based on the measured amplitude decay of Rabi oscillations, even when the Rabi frequency lies within the servo-bump bandwidth. This technique can be readily adapted to other optical qubits with minimal modifications.

quant-pharXiv:2607.24050•Jul 28, 2026•0 citations

Towards Trapped-Ion Quantum Simulation with Ground-State and Optical qubits

Midhuna Duraisamy Suganthi

Trapped ions offer a controlled and versatile platform for the simulation of spin and spin-boson quantum systems. The Coulomb interaction between ions trapped in a harmonic potential can be used to mediate interactions between effective spins in the ion chain. Generally, coherent operations on ions are performed on ground-state qubits encoded in magnetically insensitive hyperfine sublevels. In this thesis, we extend this toolbox with the aim of simultaneously manipulating both ground-state and optical qubits, with the latter encoded in metastable optically excited states. The optical qubit provides another set of coherent and dissipative operations that can be performed on the ions, opening new avenues for quantum computing and simulation. In our experiment, we use 171Yb+ and 172Yb+ ions to encode ground-state and optical qubits. We discuss the laser setup needed to address the narrow quadrupole transition from 2S1/2 →2 D3/2 of 3.02 Hz linewidth, and we describe spectroscopy techniques to study this transition in both the isotopes. We describe how the low linewidth allows resolved sideband cooling on the shared motional modes in an ion chain, enabling sympathetic cooling with one ion, 172Yb+ , while simultaneously performing coherent operations on the 171Yb+ ion. Finally, we discuss the prospects of using this tool for light-shift entangling gates, showing the flexibility of this trapped-ion system for simulating coherent as well as dissipative quantum systems.

•Nov 11, 2024•0 citations
For optical qubit encoding, laser phase noise limits the coherence time for qubit manipulations.In this thesis, we address this challenge by replicating a low-phase-noise laser system for qubit manipulation of trapped ions in a cryogenic environment. Using injection locking technology, we inject a laser diode with another laser, ensuring the replicated light retains the same spectral properties. We describe the implementation of this technique, analyse its impact on the laser spectrum, and validate it by comparing its coherence time on a trapped-ion qubit with the previously used laser.Our results demonstrate that the new laser system preserves the coherence time achieved with the seed laser, with a qubit coherence time of Tcoh=\SI2.52±0.15\milli\secondT_{coh}= \SI{2.52\pm0.15}{\milli\second} Tcoh​=\SI2.52±0.15\milli\second, paving the way for scalable and robust quantum computing and simulation in the cryogenic setup. In the future, the laser phase noise may be further reduced by spectral filtering techniques with a narrowband optical cavity. This work contributes to overtake one of the key obstacles in trapped-ion quantum computation: having long qubit coherence time.
Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits for applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. Stabilisation of the laser to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth and high spectral purity. However, widely-used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high fidelity qubit manipulation. Here we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system utilizing a medium finesse cavity. The cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, but at the same time acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped 40^{40}40Ca+^{+}+-ion as a spectrum analyser. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between -110 dBc/Hz and -120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates in using diode lasers with applications in quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation and quantum computation.
Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and for the coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits in applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. While the stabilization of such lasers to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth, the widely used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high-fidelity qubit manipulation. In this paper, we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system that utilizes a high-finesse cavity. This cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, it also acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped 40 Ca + -ion as a spectrum analyzer. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between −110 dBc/Hz and −120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates when using diode lasers in applications involving quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation, and quantum computation.
Trapped ions are a leading technology for quantum computing, but their reliance on bespoke tabletop laser and optical systems remains a major obstacle to scaling and robustness. Integrated silicon nitride lasers, compatible with future monolithic integration with surface electrode ion traps, have recently demonstrated frequency-selective qubit state preparation and measurement as well as interrogation of an optical clock transition. However, coherent qubit gates impose even more stringent requirements on laser phase noise, and their implementation with integrated laser sources has remained an outstanding challenge. Here, we use a visible-wavelength integrated Brillouin laser stabilized to an integrated coil resonator to drive coherent single- and two-qubit gates with \Sr optical qubits. We measure an average single-qubit fidelity of 99.61%±0.03%99.61\%\pm 0.03\%99.61%±0.03% per Clifford gate with randomized benchmarking and use a two-qubit Mølmer-Sørensen interaction to generate an entangled Bell state with a fidelity of 92.35%±1.50%92.35\% \pm 1.50\%92.35%±1.50%. The qubit exhibits a bare Ramsey coherence time of 659±9 μ659 \pm 9~μ659±9 μs, more than a tenfold improvement over our previous implementation, which extends to 1.750±0.0331.750 \pm 0.0331.750±0.033~ms with an echo. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that integrated visible-wavelength narrow-linewidth photonic lasers can meet the phase-noise requirements for coherent quantum logic with trapped ion optical qubits, providing a path for scalable optical systems integrated within trapped ion quantum processors.
We report on a laser-frequency-stabilization and phase-noise-filtering scheme at 871 nm for high-quality quantum operations with an optical 2S1/2{}^{2}{\mathrm{S}}_{1/2}2S1/2​--2D3/2{}^{2}{\mathrm{D}}_{3/2}2D3/2​ qubit in the 171Yb+{}^{171}\mathrm{Yb}{}^{+}171Yb+ ion. The phase noise of the laser field in a frequency range close to the trapped ion's secular frequencies (0.5--2 MHz) causes undesirable excitations and thus reduces the fidelities of both single- and two-qubit gates. The most common way to overcome this problem is to filter this noise by passing the laser light through a cavity that suppresses high-frequency phase noise and provides a pure laser spectrum. Usually, the same cavity also serves as a reference for long-term frequency stabilization. We propose and characterize an improved laser-stabilization scheme consisting of (i) a reference laser locked to a high-finesse optical cavity providing a narrow linewidth and long-term frequency stability and (ii) a main laser locked to a tunable medium-finesse cavity for phase-noise filtering. The phase locking of the medium-finesse cavity resonance to the reference laser transfers its long-term stability to the main laser. This approach allows independent optimization of both the phase-noise filtering and long-term frequency-stabilization processes, as well as ensuring the robustness of the setup. The resulting laser spectrum is characterized by direct spectroscopy of an 171Yb+{}^{171}\mathrm{Yb}{}^{+}171Yb+ ion in a linear Paul trap. We estimate the expected two-qubit gate infidelity with the filtered laser field to be well below 1%.
Laser phase noise is one of the limiting factors that dictate gate fidelities and coherence times in trapped-ion quantum systems. Previous studies have reported that when the Rabi frequency of an ion qubit is close to the servo-bump phase-noise frequency, the driving laser limits the fidelity and coherence time. This issue has typically been mitigated by choosing a Rabi frequency outside the servo-bump region. However, this constrains the usable range of gate speeds and can limit the achievable fidelity. To address this issue, we developed an active phase-noise stabilization system for a barium-ion optical-qubit laser at 1762 nm, employing a fiber electro-optic modulator (EOM) with an electrical feedforward servo. Our results demonstrate that this setup, based on the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) feedforward method, can suppress servo-bump phase noise by 15 dB near the bump peak frequency in our locking system. The laser phase noise is analyzed using delayed self-heterodyne interferometry (DSHI). We further tested the stabilized laser on an optical qubit and observed a clear improvement in coherence time based on the measured amplitude decay of Rabi oscillations, even when the Rabi frequency lies within the servo-bump bandwidth. This technique can be readily adapted to other optical qubits with minimal modifications.
Trapped ions offer a controlled and versatile platform for the simulation of spin and spin-boson quantum systems. The Coulomb interaction between ions trapped in a harmonic potential can be used to mediate interactions between effective spins in the ion chain. Generally, coherent operations on ions are performed on ground-state qubits encoded in magnetically insensitive hyperfine sublevels. In this thesis, we extend this toolbox with the aim of simultaneously manipulating both ground-state and optical qubits, with the latter encoded in metastable optically excited states. The optical qubit provides another set of coherent and dissipative operations that can be performed on the ions, opening new avenues for quantum computing and simulation. In our experiment, we use 171Yb+ and 172Yb+ ions to encode ground-state and optical qubits. We discuss the laser setup needed to address the narrow quadrupole transition from 2S1/2 →2 D3/2 of 3.02 Hz linewidth, and we describe spectroscopy techniques to study this transition in both the isotopes. We describe how the low linewidth allows resolved sideband cooling on the shared motional modes in an ion chain, enabling sympathetic cooling with one ion, 172Yb+ , while simultaneously performing coherent operations on the 171Yb+ ion. Finally, we discuss the prospects of using this tool for light-shift entangling gates, showing the flexibility of this trapped-ion system for simulating coherent as well as dissipative quantum systems.