No Arabic abstract
The spontaneous nucleation and dynamics of topological kink defects have been studied in trapped arrays of 41-43 Yb ions. The number of kinks formed as a function of quench rate across the linear-zigzag transition is measured in the under-damped regime of the inhomogeneous Kibble-Zurek theory. The experimental results agree well with molecular dynamics simulations, which show how losses mask the intrinsic nucleation rate. Simulations indicate that doubling the ion number and optimization of laser cooling can help reduce the effect of losses. A range of kink dynamics is observed including configural change, motion and lifetime, and behavioral sensitivity to ion number.
We investigate the energy dynamics of non-crystallized (melted) ions, confined in a Paul trap. The non-periodic Coulomb interaction experienced by melted ions forms a medium for non-conservative energy transfer from the radio-frequency (rf) field to the ions, a process known as rf heating. We study rf heating by analyzing numerical simulations of non-crystallized ion motion in Paul trap potentials, in which the energy of the ions secular motion changes at discrete intervals, corresponding to ion-ion collisions. The analysis of these collisions is used as a basis to derive a simplified model of rf heating energy dynamics, from which we conclude that the rf heating rate is predominantly dependent on the rf field strength. We confirm the predictability of the model experimentally: Two trapped $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ ions are deterministically driven to melt, and their fluorescence rate is used to infer the ions energy. From simulation and experimental results, we generalize which experimental parameters are required for efficient recrystallization of melted trapped ions.
We demonstrate a double-trap system well suited to study cold collisions between trapped ions and trapped atoms. Using Yb$^+$ ions confined in a Paul trap and Yb atoms in a magneto-optical trap, we investigate charge-exchange collisions of several isotopes for collision energies down to 400 neV (5 mK). The measured rate coefficient of $6 times 10^{-10}$ cm$^{3}$s$^{-1}$, constant over four orders of magnitude in collision energy, is in good agreement with that derived from a semiclassical Langevin model for an atomic polarizability of 143 a.u.
We demonstrate a Doppler cooling and detection scheme for ions with low-lying D levels which almost entirely suppresses scattered laser light background, while retaining a high fluorescence signal and efficient cooling. We cool a single ion with a laser on the 2S1/2 to 2P1/2 transition as usual, but repump via the 2P3/2 level. By filtering out light on the cooling transition and detecting only the fluorescence from the 2P_3/2 to 2S1/2 decays, we suppress the scattered laser light background count rate to 1 per second while maintaining a signal of 29000 per second with moderate saturation of the cooling transition. This scheme will be particularly useful for experiments where ions are trapped in close proximity to surfaces, such as the trap electrodes in microfabricated ion traps, which leads to high background scatter from the cooling beam.
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.
Direct frequency comb spectroscopy of trapped ions is demonstated for the first time. It is shown that the 4s^2S_(1/2)-4p^2P_(3/2) transition in calcium ions can be excited directly with a frequency comb laser that is upconverted to 393 nm. Detection of the transition is performed using a shelving scheme to suppress background signal from non-resonant comb modes. The measured transition frequency of f=761 905 012.7(0.5) MHz presents an improvement in accuracy of more than two orders of magnitude.