No Arabic abstract
We employ spin-dependent optical dipole forces to characterize the transverse center-of-mass (COM) motional mode of a two-dimensional Wigner crystal of hundreds of $^9$Be$^+$. By comparing the measured spin dephasing produced by the spin-dependent force with the predictions of a semiclassical dephasing model, we obtain absolute mode temperatures in excellent agreement with both the Doppler laser cooling limit and measurements obtained from a previously published technique (B. C. Sawyer et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. textbf{108}, 213003 (2012)). Furthermore, the structure of the dephasing histograms allows for discrimination between initial thermal and coherent states of motion. We also apply the techniques discussed here to measure, for the first time, the ambient heating rate of the COM mode of a 2D Coulomb crystal in a Penning trap. This measurement places an upper limit on the anomalous single-ion heating rate due to electric field noise from the trap electrode surfaces of $frac{dbar{n}}{dt}sim 5$ s$^{-1}$ for our trap at a frequency of 795 kHz, where $bar{n}$ is the mean occupation of quantized COM motion in the axial harmonic well.
We present measurements of trapped-ion motional-state heating rates in niobium and gold surface-electrode ion traps over a range of trap-electrode temperatures from approximately 4 K to room temperature (295 K) in a single apparatus. Using the sideband-ratio technique after resolved-sideband cooling of single ions to the motional ground state, we find low-temperature heating rates more than two orders of magnitude below the room-temperature values and approximately equal to the lowest measured heating rates in similarly-sized cryogenic traps. We find similar behavior in the two very different electrode materials, suggesting that the anomalous heating process is dominated by non-material-specific surface contaminants. Through precise control of the temperature of cryopumping surfaces, we also identify conditions under which elastic collisions with the background gas can lead to an apparent steady heating rate, despite rare collisions.
We report quantum ground state cooling of a levitated nanoparticle in a room temperature environment. Using coherent scattering into an optical cavity we cool the center of mass motion of a $143$ nm diameter silica particle by more than $7$ orders of magnitude to $n_x=0.43pm0.03$ phonons along the cavity axis, corresponding to a temperature of $12~mu$K. We infer a heating rate of $Gamma_x/2pi = 21pm 3$ kHz, which results in a coherence time of $7.6~mu$s -- or $15$ coherent oscillations -- while the particle is optically trapped at a pressure of $10^{-6}$ mbar. The inferred optomechanical coupling rate of $g_x/2pi = 71$ kHz places the system well into the regime of strong cooperativity ($C approx 5$). We expect that a combination of ultra-high vacuum with free-fall dynamics will allow to further expand the spatio-temporal coherence of such nanoparticles by several orders of magnitude, thereby opening up new opportunities for macrosopic quantum experiments.
We present measurements of the motional heating rate of a trapped ion at different trap frequencies and temperatures between $sim$0.6 and 1.5 MHz and $sim$4 and 295 K. Additionally, we examine the possible effect of adsorbed surface contaminants with boiling points below $sim$105$^{circ}$C by measuring the ion heating rate before and after locally baking our ion trap chip under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. We compare the heating rates presented here to those calculated from available electric-field noise models. We can tightly constrain a subset of these models based on their expected frequency and temperature scaling interdependence. Discrepancies between the measured results and predicted values point to the need for refinement of theoretical noise models in order to more fully understand the mechanisms behind motional trapped-ion heating.
We present a technique based on high resolution imaging to measure the absolute temperature and the heating rate of a single ion trapped at the focus of a deep parabolic mirror. We collect the fluorescence light scattered by the ion during laser cooling and image it onto a camera. Accounting for the size of the point-spread function and the magnification of the imaging system, we determine the spatial extent of the ion, from which we infer the mean phonon occupation number in the trap. Repeating such measurements and varying the power or the detuning of the cooling laser, we determine the anomalous heating rate. In contrast to other established schemes for measuring the heating rate, one does not have to switch off the cooling but the ion is always maintained in a state of thermal equilibrium at temperatures close to the Doppler limit.
We present a new method of spin-motion coupling for trapped ions using microwaves and a magnetic field gradient oscillating close to the ions motional frequency. We demonstrate and characterize this coupling experimentally using a single ion in a surface-electrode trap that incorporates current-carrying electrodes to generate the microwave field and the oscillating magnetic field gradient. Using this method, we perform resolved-sideband cooling of a single motional mode to its ground state.