No Arabic abstract
Trapped ion in the Lamb-Dicke regime with the Lamb-Dicke parameter $etall1$ can be cooled down to its motional ground state using sideband cooling. Standard sideband cooling works in the weak sideband coupling limit, where the sideband coupling strength is small compared to the natural linewidth $gamma$ of the internal excited state, with a cooling rate much less than $gamma$. Here we consider cooling schemes in the strong sideband coupling regime, where the sideband coupling strength is comparable or even greater than $gamma$. We derive analytic expressions for the cooling rate and the average occupation of the motional steady state in this regime, based on which we show that one can reach a cooling rate which is proportional to $gamma$, while at the same time the steady state occupation increases by a correction term proportional to $eta^{2}$ compared to the weak sideband coupling limit. We demonstrate with numerical simulations that our analytic expressions faithfully recover the exact dynamics in the strong sideband coupling regime.
We report a demonstration and quantitative characterization of one-dimensional cavity cooling of a single trapped 88Sr+ ion in the resolved sideband regime. We measure the spectrum of cavity transitions, the rates of cavity heating and cooling, and the steady-state cooling limit. The cavity cooling dynamics and cooling limit of 22.5(3) motional quanta, limited by the moderate coupling between the ion and the cavity, are consistent with a simple model [Phys. Rev. A 64, 033405] without any free parameters, validating the rate equation model for cavity cooling.
Trapped ions are a promising candidate for large scale quantum computation. Several systems have been built in both academic and industrial settings to implement modestly-sized quantum algorithms. Efficient cooling of the motional degrees of freedom is a key requirement for high-fidelity quantum operations using trapped ions. Here, we present a technique whereby individual ions are used to cool individual motional modes in parallel, reducing the time required to bring an ion chain to its motional ground state. We demonstrate this technique experimentally and develop a model to understand the efficiency of our parallel sideband cooling technique compared to more traditional methods. This technique is applicable to any system using resolved sideband cooling of co-trapped atomic species and only requires individual addressing of the trapped particles.
Great advances in precision quantum measurement have been achieved with trapped ions and atomic gases at the lowest possible temperatures. These successes have inspired ideas to merge the two systems. In this way one can study the unique properties of ionic impurities inside a quantum fluid or explore buffer gas cooling of the trapped ion quantum computer. Remarkably, in spite of its importance, experiments with atom-ion mixtures remained firmly confined to the classical collision regime. We report a collision energy of 1.15(0.23) times the $s$-wave energy (or 9.9(2.0)~$mu$K) for a trapped ytterbium ion in an ultracold lithium gas. We observed a deviation from classical Langevin theory by studying the spin-exchange dynamics, indicating quantum behavior in the atom-ion collisions. Our results open up numerous opportunities, such as the exploration of atom-ion Feshbach resonances, in analogy to neutral systems.
We propose a new dark-state cooling method of trapped ion systems in the Lamb-Dicke limit. With application of microwave dressing the ion, we can obtain two electromagnetically induced transparency structures. The heating effects caused by the carrier and the blue sideband transition vanish due to the EIT effects and the final mean phonon numbers can be much less than the recoil limit. Our scheme is robust to fluctuations of microwave power and laser intensities which provides a broad cooling bandwidth to cool motional modes of a linear ion chain. Moreover, it is more suitable to cool four-level ions on a large-scale ion chip.
Miniaturized ion trap arrays with many trap segments present a promising architecture for scalable quantum information processing. The miniaturization of segmented linear Paul traps allows partitioning the microtrap in different storage and processing zones. The individual position control of many ions - each of them carrying qubit information in its long-lived electronic levels - by the external trap control voltages is important for the implementation of next generation large-scale quantum algorithms. We present a novel scalable microchip multi-segmented ion trap with two different adjacent zones, one for the storage and another dedicated for the processing of quantum information using single ions and linear ion crystals: A pair of radio-frequency driven electrodes and 62 independently controlled DC electrodes allows shuttling of single ions or linear ion crystals with numerically designed axial potentials at axial and radial trap frequencies of a few MHz. We characterize and optimize the microtrap using sideband spectroscopy on the narrow S1/2 <-> D5/2 qubit transition of the 40Ca+ ion, demonstrate coherent single qubit Rabi rotations and optical cooling methods. We determine the heating rate using sideband cooling measurements to the vibrational ground state which is necessary for subsequent two-qubit quantum logic operations. The applicability for scalable quantum information processing is proven.