No Arabic abstract
We study, both experimentally and theoretically, electromagnetically induced transparency cooling of the drumhead modes of planar 2-dimensional arrays with up to $Napprox 190$ Be${}^+$ ions stored in a Penning trap. Substantial sub-Doppler cooling is observed for all $N$ drumhead modes. Quantitative measurements for the center-of-mass mode show near ground state cooling with motional quantum numbers of $bar{n} = 0.3pm0.2$ obtained within $200~mu s$. The measured cooling rate is faster than that predicted by single particle theory, consistent with a quantum many-body calculation. For the lower frequency drumhead modes, quantitative temperature measurements are limited by apparent damping and frequency instabilities, but near ground state cooling of the full bandwidth is strongly suggested. This advancement will greatly improve the performance of large trapped ion crystals in quantum information and quantum metrology applications.
We have cooled a two-ion-crystal to the ground state of its collective modes of motion. Laser cooling, more specific resolved sideband cooling is performed sympathetically by illuminating only one of the two $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ions in the crystal. The heating rates of the motional modes of the crystal in our linear trap have been measured, and we found them considerably smaller than those previously reported by Q. Turchette {em et. al.} Phys. Rev. A 61, 063418 (2000) in the case of trapped $^9$Be$^+$ ions. After the ground state is prepared, coherent quantum state manipulation of the atomic population can be performed. Within the coherence time, up to 12 Rabi oscillations are observed, showing that many coherent manipulations can be achieved. Coherent excitation of each ion individually and ground state cooling are important tools for the realization of quantum information processing in ion traps.
Penning traps, with their ability to control planar crystals of tens to hundreds of ions, are versatile quantum simulators. Thermal occupations of the motional drumhead modes, transverse to the plane of the ion crystal, degrade the quality of quantum simulations. Laser cooling using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT cooling) is attractive as an efficient way to quickly initialize the drumhead modes to near ground-state occupations. We numerically investigate the efficiency of EIT cooling of planar ion crystals in a Penning trap, accounting for complications arising from the nature of the trap and from the simultaneous cooling of multiple ions. We show that, in spite of challenges, the large bandwidth of drumhead modes (hundreds of kilohertz) can be rapidly cooled to near ground-state occupations within a few hundred microseconds. Our predictions for the center-of-mass mode include a cooling time constant of tens of microseconds and an enhancement of the cooling rate with increasing number of ions. Successful experimental demonstrations of EIT cooling in the NIST Penning trap [E. Jordan, K. A. Gilmore, A. Shankar, A. Safavi-Naini, M. J. Holland, and J. J. Bollinger, Near ground-state cooling of two-dimensional trapped-ion crystals with more than 100 ions, (2018), submitted.] validate our predictions.
We theoretically and experimentally investigate double electromagnetically induced transparency (double-EIT) cooling of two-dimensional ion crystals confined in a Paul trap. The double-EIT ground-state cooling is observed for Yb ions with clock state, for which EIT cooling has not been realized like many other ions with a simple $Lambda$-scheme. A cooling rate of $dot{bar n}=34~(pm1.8)~rm{ms}^{-1}$ and a cooling limit of $bar n=0.06~(pm 0.059)$ are observed for a single ion. The measured cooling rate and limit are consistent with theoretical predictions. We apply double-EIT cooling to the transverse modes of two-dimensional (2D) crystals with up to 12 ions. In our 2D crystals, the micromotion and the transverse mode directions are perpendicular, which makes them decoupled. Therefore, the cooling on transverse modes is not disturbed by micromotion, which is confirmed in our experiment. For the center of mass mode of a 12 ions crystal, we observe a cooling rate and a cooling limit that are consistent with those of a single ion, including heating rates proportional to the number of ions. This method can be extended to other hyperfine qubits, and near ground-state cooling of stationary 2D crystals with large numbers of ions may advance the field of quantum information sciences.
Using a laser polarization gradient, we realize 3D Sisyphus cooling of $^{171}$Yb$^+$ ions confined in and near the Lamb-Dicke regime in a linear Paul trap. The cooling rate and final mean motional energy of a single ion are characterized as a function of laser intensity and compared to semiclassical and quantum simulations. Sisyphus cooling is also applied to a linear string of four ions to obtain a mean energy of 1-3 quanta for all vibrational modes, an approximately order-of-magnitude reduction below Doppler cooled energies. This is used to enable subsequent, efficient sideband laser cooling.
We demonstrate ground-state cooling of a trapped ion using radio-frequency (RF) radiation. This is a powerful tool for the implementation of quantum operations, where RF or microwave radiation instead of lasers is used for motional quantum state engineering. We measure a mean phonon number of $overline{n} = 0.13(4)$ after sideband cooling, corresponding to a ground-state occupation probability of 88(7)%. After preparing in the vibrational ground state, we demonstrate motional state engineering by driving Rabi oscillations between the n=0 and n=1 Fock states. We also use the ability to ground-state cool to accurately measure the motional heating rate and report a reduction by almost two orders of magnitude compared to our previously measured result, which we attribute to carefully eliminating sources of electrical noise in the system.