A small number of laser-cooled ions trapped in a linear radiofrequency multipole trap forms a hollow tube structure. We have studied, by means of molecular dynamics simulations, the structural transition from a double ring to a single ring of ions. We show that the single-ring configuration has the advantage to inhibit the thermal transfer from the rf-excited radial components of the motion to the axial component, allowing to reach the Doppler limit temperature along the direction of the trap axis. Once cooled in this particular configuration, the ions experience an angular dependency of the confinement if the local adiabaticity parameter exceeds the empirical limit. Bunching of the ion structures can then be observed and an analytic expression is proposed to take into account for this behaviour.
Multipole radiofrequency ion traps are a highly versatile tool to study molecular ions and their interactions in a well-controllable environment. In particular the cryogenic 22-pole ion trap configuration is used to study ion-molecule reactions and complex molecular spectroscopy at temperatures between few Kelvin and room temperatures. This article presents a tutorial on radiofrequency ion trapping in multipole electrode configurations. Stable trapping conditions and buffer gas cooling, as well as important heating mechanisms, are discussed. In addition, selected experimental studies on cation…
We report on the realisation of a chip-based multipole ion trap manufactured using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. It provides ion confinement in an almost field-free volume between two planes of radiofrequency electrodes, deposited on glass substrates, which allows for optical access to the trap. An analytical model of the effective trapping potential is presented and compared with numerical calculations. Stable trapping of argon ions is achieved and a lifetime of 16s is measured. Electrostatic charging of the chip surfaces is studied and found to agree with a numerical est…
We identify plain evaporation of ions as the fundamental loss mechanism out of a multipole ion trap. Using thermalized negative Cl- ions we find that the evaporative loss rate is proportional to a Boltzmann factor. This thermodynamic description sheds new light on the dynamics of particles in time-varying confining potentials. It specifically allows us to extract the effective depth of the ion trap as the activation energy for evaporation. As a function of the rf amplitude we find two distinct regimes related to the stability of motion of the trapped ions. For low amplitudes the entire trap al…
The absolute photodetachment cross section of OH- anions at a rotational and translational temperature of 170K is determined by measuring the detachment-induced decay rate of the anions in a multipole radio-frequency ion trap. In comparison with previous results, the obtained cross section shows the importance of the initial rotational state distribution. Using a tomography scan of the photodetachment laser through the trapped ion cloud, the derived cross section is model-independent and thus features a small systematic uncertainty. The tomography also yields the column density of the OH- anio…
Radiofrequency multipole traps have been used for some decades in cold collision experiments, and are gaining interest for precision spectroscopy due to their low mi-cromotion contribution, and the predicted unusual cold-ion structures. However, the experimental realisation is not yet fully controlled, and open questions in the operation of these devices remain. We present experimental observations of symmetry breaking of the trapping potential in a macroscopic octupole trap with laser-cooled ions. Numerical simulations have been performed in order to explain the appearance of additional local…
While the linear radiofrequency trap finds various applications in high-precision spectroscopy and quantum information, its higher-order cousin, the linear multipole trap, is almost exclusively employed in physical chemistry. Recently, first experiments have shown interesting features by laser-cooling multipole-trapped ion clouds. Multipole traps show a flatter potential in their centre and therefore a modified density distribution compared to quadrupole traps. Micromotion is an important issue and will certainly influence the dynamics of crystallized ion structures. Our experiment tends to in…
We theoretically investigate the dynamics of a trapped ion immersed in a spatially localized buffer gas. For a homogeneous buffer gas, the ion reaches a stable equilibrium only if the mass ratio of the buffer gas atom to the ion is below a critical value. We show how this limitation can be overcome by using multipole traps and a spatially confined buffer gas. Using a generalized model for elastic collisions of the ion with the buffer gas atoms, the ion's energy distribution is derived for arbitrary buffer gas distributions and trap parameters. Three regimes characterized by the analytical form…
Multipole radio-frequency traps are central to collisional experiments in cryogenic environments. They also offer possibilities to generate new type of ion crystals topologies and in particular the potential to create infinite 1D/2D structures: ion rings and ion tubes. However, multipole traps have also been shown to be very sensitive to geometrical misalignment of the trap rods, leading to additional local trapping minima. The present work proposes a method to correct non-ideal potentials, by modifying the applied radio-frequency amplitudes for each trap rod. This approach is discussed for th…
We report on the design and experimental characterization of a surface-electrode multipole ion trap. Individual microscopic sugar particles are confined in the trap. The trajectories of driven particle motion are compared with a theoretical model, both to verify qualitative predictions of the model, and to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of the confined particle. The generation of harmonics of the driving frequency is observed as a key signature of the nonlinear nature of the trap. We remark on possible applications of our traps, including to mass spectrometry.
We present a method for the creation of closed-loop lattices for ultra-cold atoms using dressed potentials. We analytically describe the generation of trap lattices that are state-dependent, with dynamically controlled lattice depths and positioning. In a design akin to a synchronous motor, the potentials arise from the combination of a static, ring-shaped quadrupole field and multipole radio-frequency fields. Our technique relies solely on static and radio-frequency (rf) magnetic fields, enabling the creation of robust atom traps with simple control via rf amplitudes and phases. Potential app…
We present designs for multipole ion traps based on a set of planar, annular, concentric electrodes which require only rf potentials to confine ions. We illustrate the desirable properties of the traps by considering a few simple cases of confined ions. We predict that mm-scale surface traps may have trap depths as high as tens of electron volts, or micromotion amplitudes in a 2-D ion crystal as low as tens of nanometers, when parameters of a magnitude common in the field are chosen. Several example traps are studied, and the scaling of those properties with voltage, frequency, and trap scale,…
Trapped singly-charged ions can crystallize as a result of laser cooling. The emerging structure depends on the number of particles and on the geometry of the trapping potential. In linear multipole radiofrequency traps, the geometry of the radial potential can lead to the formation of single-ring structures. We analyse the conditions and stability of single rings as a function of the number of poles. For larger numbers of ions the rings form tubes in which the arrangement of the ions corresponds to a triangular lattice folded onto a cylinder. The stability of these tubular structures is numer…
Additional radio-frequency (rf) potentials applied to linear multipole traps create extra field nodes in the radial plane which allow one to confine single ions, or strings of ions, in totally rf field-free regions. The number of nodes depends on the order of the applied multipole potentials and their relative distance can be easily tuned by the amplitude variation of the applied voltages. Simulations using molecular dynamics show that strings of ions can be laser cooled down to the Doppler limit in all directions of space. Once cooled, organized systems can be moved with very limited heating,…
Trapping of microparticles, nanoparticles and aerosols is an issue of major interest for physics and chemistry. We present a setup intended for microparticle trapping in multipole linear Paul trap geometries, operating under Standard Ambient Temperature and Pressure (SATP) conditions. A 16-electrode linear trap geometry has been designed and tested, with an aim to confine a larger number of particles with respect to quadrupole traps and thus enhance the signal to noise ratio, as well as to study microparticle dynamical stability in electrodynamic fields. Experimental tests and numerical simula…
Trapping of microparticles and aerosols is of great interest for physics and chemistry. We report microparticle trapping in multipole linear Paul trap geometries, operating under Standard Ambient Temperature and Pressure (SATP) conditions. An 8-electrode and a 12-electrode linear trap geometries have been designed and tested with an aim to achieve trapping for larger number of particles and to study microparticle dynamical stability in electrodynamic fields. We report emergence of planar and volume ordered structures of the microparticles, depending on the a.c. trapping frequency and particle …
Spectroscopy is an essential tool in understanding and manipulating quantum systems, such as atoms and molecules. The model describing spectroscopy includes a multipole-field interaction, which leads to established spectroscopic selection rules, and an interaction that is quadratic in the field, which is often neglected. However, spectroscopy using the quadratic (ponderomotive) interaction promises two significant advantages over spectroscopy using the multipole-field interaction: flexible transition rules and vastly improved spatial addressability of the quantum system. For the first time, we…
An ultrastable optical clock based on neutral atoms trapped in an optical lattice is proposed. Complete control over the light shift is achieved by employing the $5s^2 {}^1S_0 \to 5s5p {}^3P_0$ transition of ${}^{87}{\rm Sr}$ atoms as a "clock transition". Calculations of ac multipole polarizabilities and dipole hyperpolarizabilities for the clock transition indicate that the contribution of the higher-order light shifts can be reduced to less than 1 mHz, allowing for a projected accuracy of better than $ 10^{-17}$.
A relativistic many-body method is developed to calculate energy and transition rates for multipole transitions in many-electron ions. This method is based on relativistic many-body perturbation theory (RMBPT), agrees with MCDF calculations in lowest-order, includes all second-order correlation corrections and includes corrections from negative energy states. Reduced matrix elements, oscillator strengths, and transition rates are calculated for electric-multipole (dipole (E1), quadrupole (E2), and octupole (E3)) and magnetic-multipole (dipole (M1), quadrupole (M2), and octupole (M3)) transitio…
Samples of ultracold 174 Yb+ ions, confined in a linear radio-frequency Paul trap, are heated via self-induced micromotion interruption, while their temperature, density, and therefore structural phase are monitored and simulated. The observed time evolution of the ion temperature is compared to a theoretical model for ion-ion heating allowing a direct measurement of the Coulomb logarithm in a linear Paul trap. This result permits a simple, yet accurate, analytical description of ion cloud thermodynamic properties, e.g. density, temperature, and structural phase, as well as suggests limits to …
We study experimentally and theoretically structural defects which are formed during the transition from a laser cooled cloud to a Coulomb crystal, consisting of tens of ions in a linear radio frequency trap. We demonstrate the creation of predicted topological defects (`kinks') in purely two-dimensional crystals, and also find kinks which show novel dynamical features in a regime of parameters not considered before. The kinks are always observed at the centre of the trap, showing a large nonlinear localized excitation, and the probability of their occurrence surprisingly saturates at ~0.5. Si…
The stable structures and melting properties of ion clouds in isotropic octupole traps are investigated using a combination of semi-analytical and numerical models, with a particular emphasis at finite size scaling effects. Small-size clouds are found to be hollow and arranged in shells corresponding approximately to the solutions of the Thomson problem. The shell structure is lost in clusters containing more than a few thousands of ions, the inner parts of the cloud becoming soft and amorphous. While melting is triggered in the core shells, the melting temperature unexpectedly follows the rul…
We present the design and experimental demonstration of an open-endcap radio frequency trap to confine ion crystals in the radial-two dimensional (2D) structural phase. The central axis of the trap is kept free of obstructions to allow for site-resolved imaging of ions in the 2D crystal plane, and the confining potentials are provided by four segmented blade electrodes. We discuss the design challenges, fabrication techniques, and voltage requirements for implementing this open-endcap trap. Finally, we validate its operation by confining up to 29 ions in a 2D triangular lattice, oriented such …
