Linear strings of trapped atomic ions held in radio-frequency (rf) traps constitute one of the leading platforms for quantum simulation experiments, allowing for the investigation of interacting quantum matter. However, linear ion strings have drawbacks, such as the difficulty to scale beyond $\sim 50$ particles as well as the inability to naturally implement spin models with more than one spatial dimension. Here, we present experiments with planar Coulomb crystals of about 100 $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ions in a novel monolithic rf trap, laying the groundwork for quantum simulations of two-dimensional spin models with single-particle control. We characterize the trapping potential by analysis of crystal images and compare the observed crystal configurations with numerical simulations. We further demonstrate stable confinement of large crystals, free of structural configuration changes, and find that rf heating of the crystal is not an obstacle for future quantum simulation experiments. Finally, we prepare the out-of-plane motional modes of planar crystals consisting of up to 105 ions close to their ground state by electromagnetically-induced transparency cooling, an important prerequisite for implementing long-range entangling interactions.
We propose a novel ion trap design with the high collection efficiency parabolic-mirror integrated with the ion trap electrodes. This design has three radio frequency (RF) electrodes and eight direct current(DC) compensation electrodes. By carefully adjusting three RF voltages, the parabolic mirror focus can be made precisely coincident with the RF null point. Thus, the aberration and the ion micromotion can be minimized at the same time. This monolithic design can significantly improve the ion-ion entanglement generation speed by extending the photon collecting solid angle beyond $90\%\cdot4π…
We report on trapping and cooling Li-6 atoms in a monolithic ring bowtie cavity. To make the cavity insensitive to magnetic fields used to tune atomic interactions, we constructed it entirely from fused silica and Zerodur. The components were assembled using hydroxide bonding, which we show can be compatible with ultra-high vacuum. Backscattering in high-finesse ring cavities readily causes trap intensity fluctuations and heating, but with phase-controlled bi-directional pumping the trap lifetime can be made long enough for quantum gas experiments in both the crossed-beam trap (unidirectional …
We describe a novel monolithic ion trap that combines the flexibility and scalability of silicon microfabrication technologies with the superior trapping characteristics of traditional four-rod Paul traps. The performace of the proposed microfabricated trap approaches that of the macroscopic structures. The fabrication process creates an angled through-chip slot which allows backside ion loading and through-laser access while avoiding surface light scattering and dielectric charging. The trap geometry and dimensions are optimized for confining long ion chains with equal ion spacing [G.-D. Lin,…
A monolithic segmented 3D ion trap fabricated from fused silica by selective laser-induced etching
ETH Zürich–PSI Quantum Computing Hub（苏黎世联邦理工学院-保罗谢勒研究所量子计算中心）；Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院量子电子学研究所）；Department of Physics, University of Trieste（的里雅斯特大学物理系）；Oxford Ionics（牛津离子体公司）；NVIDIA（英伟达）；Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院机械与工艺工程纳米光子学系统实验室）
We present a simple Paul trap that stably accommodates up to a couple of dozens of \ensuremath{^{171}\mathrm{Yb}^+~} ions in a stationary two-dimensional lattice. The trap is constructed on a single plate of gold-plated laser-machined alumina and can produce a pancake-like pseudo-potential that makes ions form a self-assembly two-dimensional crystal which locates on the plane composed of axial and one of the transverse axes with around 5 $μ$m spacing. We use Raman laser beams to coherently manipulate these ion-qubits where the net propagation direction is perpendicular to the plane of the crys…
We realize fast transport of ions in a segmented micro-structured Paul trap. The ion is shuttled over a distance of more than 10^4 times its groundstate wavefunction size during only 5 motional cycles of the trap (280 micro meter in 3.6 micro seconds). Starting from a ground-state-cooled ion, we find an optimized transport such that the energy increase is as low as 0.10 $\pm$ 0.01 motional quanta. In addition, we demonstrate that quantum information stored in a spin-motion entangled state is preserved throughout the transport. Shuttling operations are concatenated, as a proof-of-principle for …
Recent advances in quantum information processing with trapped ions have demonstrated the need for new ion trap architectures capable of holding and manipulating chains of many (>10) ions. Here we present the design and detailed characterization of a new linear trap, microfabricated with scalable complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) techniques, that is well-suited to this challenge. Forty-four individually controlled DC electrodes provide the many degrees of freedom required to construct anharmonic potential wells, shuttle ions, merge and split ion chains, precisely tune secular mode…
We generate squeezed state of light at 860 nm with a monolithic optical parametric oscillator. The optical parametric oscillator consists of a periodically poled KTiOPO_4 crystal, both ends of which are spherically polished and mirror-coated. We achieve both phase matching and cavity resonance by controlling only the temperature of the crystal. We observe up to -8.0 dB of squeezing with the bandwidth of 142 MHz. Our technique makes it possible to drive many monolithic cavities simultaneously by a single laser. Hence our monolithic optical parametric oscillator is quite suitable to continuous-v…
Doubly dipolar molecules exhibit complex internal spin-dynamics when electric and magnetic fields are both applied. Near magnetic trap minima, these spin-dynamics lead to enhancements in Majorana spin-flip transitions by many orders of magnitude relative to atoms, and are thus an important obstacle for progress in molecule trapping and cooling. We conclusively demonstrate and address this with OH molecules in a trap geometry where spin-flip losses can be tuned from over $200 \text{ s}^{-1} $ to below our $2\text{ s}^{-1}$ vacuum limited loss rate with only a simple external bias coil and with …
A procedure to enhance the quantum--classical correspondence even in situations far from the classical limit is proposed. It is based on controlling the quantum transport between classical regions using the capability to synthesize arbitrary motional states in ion traps. Quantum barriers and passages to transport can be created selecting the relevant frequencies. This technique is then applied to stabilize the quantum motion onto classical structures or alter the dynamical tunneling in nonintegrable systems.
We theoretically study specific schemes for performing a fundamental two-qubit quantum gate via controlled atomic collisions by switching microscopic potentials. In particular we calculate the fidelity of a gate operation for a configuration where a potential barrier between two atoms is instantaneously removed and restored after a certain time. Possible implementations could be based on microtraps created by magnetic and electric fields, or potentials induced by laser light.
Trapped ions are ideally suited for precision spectroscopy, as is evident from the remarkably low systematic uncertainties of single-ion clocks. The major weakness of these clocks is the long averaging time, necessitated by the low signal of a single atom. An increased number of ions can overcome this limitation and allow for the implementation of novel clock schemes. However, this presents the challenge to maintain the excellent control over systematic shifts of a single particle in spatially extended and strongly coupled many-body systems. We measure and deduce systematic frequency uncertain…
Ultracold molecules trapped in optical tweezers show great promise for the implementation of quantum technologies and precision measurements. We study a prototypical scenario where two interacting polar molecules placed in separate traps are controlled using an external electric field. This, for instance, enables a quantum computing scheme in which the rotational structure is used to encode the qubit states. We estimate the typical operation timescales needed for state engineering to be in the range of few microseconds. We further underline the important role of the spatial structure of the tw…
Measuring heat flow through nanoscale systems poses formidable practical difficulties as there is no `ampere meter' for heat. We propose to overcome this problem by realizing heat transport through a chain of trapped ions. Laser cooling the chain edges to different temperatures induces a current of local vibrations (vibrons). We show how to efficiently control and measure this current, including fluctuations, by coupling vibrons to internal ion states. This demonstrates that ion crystals provide a suitable platform for studying quantum transport, e.g., through thermal analogues of quantum wire…
We investigate the performance of different control techniques for ion transport in state-of-the-art segmented miniaturized ion traps. We employ numerical optimization of classical trajectories and quantum wavepacket propagation as well as analytical solutions derived from invariant based inverse engineering and geometric optimal control. We find that accurate shuttling can be performed with operation times below the trap oscillation period. The maximum speed is limited by the maximum acceleration that can be exerted on the ion. When using controls obtained from classical dynamics for wavepack…
We present the design and construction of a new experimental apparatus for the trapping of single Ba$^+$ ions in the center of curvature of an optical-quality hemispherical mirror. We describe the layout, fabrication and integration of the full setup, consisting of a high-optical access monolithic `3D-printed' Paul trap, the hemispherical mirror, a diffraction-limited in-vacuum lens (NA = 0.7) for collection of atomic fluorescence and a state-of-the art ultra-high vacuum vessel. This new apparatus enables the study of quantum electrodynamics effects such as strong inhibition and enhancement of…
Trapped ions boast long coherence times and excellent gate fidelities, making them a useful platform for quantum information processing. Scaling to larger numbers of ion qubits in RF Paul traps demands great effort. Another technique for trapping ions is via a Penning trap where a 2D crystal of hundreds of ions is formed by controlling the rotation of the ions in the presence of a strong magnetic field. However, the rotation of the ion crystal makes single ion addressability a significant challenge. We propose a protocol that takes advantage of a deformable mirror to introduce AC Stark shift p…
Cryogenic environments benefit ion trapping experiments by offering lower motional heating rates, collision energies, and an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment for maintaining long ion chains for extended periods of time. Mechanical vibrations caused by compressors in closed-cycle cryostats can introduce relative motion between the ion and the wavefronts of lasers used to manipulate the ions. Here, we present a novel ion trapping system where a commercial low-vibration closed-cycle cryostat is used in a custom monolithic enclosure. We measure mechanical vibrations of the sample stage using an…
The electromagnetic manipulation of isolated atoms has led to many advances in physics, from laser cooling and Bose-Einstein condensation of cold gases to the precise quantum control of individual atomic ion. Work on miniaturizing electromagnetic traps to the micrometer scale promises even higher levels of control and reliability. Compared with 'chip traps' for confining neutral atoms, ion traps with similar dimensions and power dissipation offer much higher confinement forces and allow unparalleled control at the single-atom level. Moreover, ion microtraps are of great interest in the develop…
The control of chemical reactions is a recurring theme in physics and chemistry. Traditionally, chemical reactions have been investigated by tuning thermodynamic parameters, such as temperature or pressure. More recently, physical methods such as laser or magnetic field control have emerged to provide completely new experimental possibilities, in particular in the realm of cold collisions. The control of reaction pathways is also a critical component to implement molecular quantum information processing. For these undertakings, single particles provide a clean and well-controlled experimental …
We investigate theoretically the interaction of polar molecules with optical lattices and microwave fields. We demonstrate the existence of frequency windows in the optical domain where the complex internal structure of the molecule does not influence the trapping potential of the lattice. In such frequency windows the Franck-Condon factors are so small that near-resonant interaction of vibrational levels of the molecule with the lattice fields have a negligible contribution to the polarizability and light-induced decoherences are kept to a minimum. In addition, we show that microwave fields c…
Scaling a trapped-ion based quantum simulator to a large number of ions creates a fully-controllable quantum system that becomes inaccessible to numerical methods. When highly anisotropic trapping potentials are used to confine the ions in the form of a long linear string, several challenges have to be overcome to achieve high-fidelity coherent control of a quantum system extending over hundreds of micrometers. In this paper, we describe a setup for carrying out many-ion quantum simulations including single-ion coherent control that we use for demonstrating entanglement in 50-ion strings. Furt…
We describe a possible architecture to implement a universal bosonic simulator (UBS) using trapped ions. Single ions are confined in individual traps, and their motional states represent the bosonic modes. Single-mode linear operators, nonlinear phase-shifts, and linear beam splitters can be realized by precisely controlling the trapping potentials. All the processes in a bosonic simulation, except the initialization and the readout, can be conducted beyond the Lamb-Dicke regime. Aspects of our proposal can also be applied to split adiabatically a pair of ions in a single trap.
We study theoretically a driven hybrid optomechanical system with a membrane-in-the-middle configuration containing two identical elongated cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in each side of the membrane. In the weakly interacting regime, the BECs can be considered as single-mode oscillators in the Bogoliubov approximation which are coupled to the optical field through the radiation pressure interaction so that they behave as two quasi-membranes. We show that the degree of squeezing of each BEC and its entanglement with the moving membrane can be controlled by the \textit{s}-wave sc…
The entanglement characteristics including the so-called sudden death effect between two identical two-level atoms trapped in two separate cavities connected by an optical fiber are studied. The results show that the time evolution of entanglement is sensitive not only to the degree of entanglement of the initial state but also to the ratio between cavity-fiber coupling () and atom-cavity coupling (). This means that the entanglement dynamics can be controlled by choosing specific v and g.
A simple method to create and control magnetic potentials onto coupled quantum wells is demonstrated for indirect-exciton magnetic confinement. Localized inhomogeneous magnetic potentials with periodically distributed local minima and maxima, known as magnetic lattices, are projected into the plane of the coupled quantum wells and used for the spatially distributed two-dimensional indirect-exciton trapping, in which case localized indirect-excitons are observed. The indirect-exciton trapping mechanism is examined by controlling external magnetic field bias resulting in a shift of the localized…
Exploration of Design Alternatives for Reducing Idle Time in Shor's Algorithm: A Study on Monolithic and Distributed Quantum Systems
University of Bremen（不来梅大学）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence Cyber-Physical Systems（德国人工智能研究中心物理信息系统）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence Robotics Innovation Center（德国人工智能研究中心机器人创新中心）；Group of Computer Architecture, University of Bremen（不来梅大学计算机体系结构组）
Chemical reaction rates often depend strongly on stereodynamics, namely the orientation and movement of molecules in three-dimensional space. An ultracold molecular gas, with a temperature below 1 uK, provides a highly unusual regime for chemistry, where polar molecules can easily be oriented using an external electric field and where, moreover, the motion of two colliding molecules is strictly quantized. Recently, atom-exchange reactions were observed in a trapped ultracold gas of KRb molecules. In an external electric field, these exothermic and barrierless bimolecular reactions, KRb+KRb -> …
Cavity optomechanics offers quantum cooling, quantum control and measurement of small mechanical oscillators. However the optical backactions that underpin quantum control can significantly disturb the oscillator modes: mechanical frequencies are shifted by the optical spring effect and light-matter hybridisation in strong coupling regimes; mechanical modes hybridise with each other via the cavity mode. This is even more pertinent in the field of levitated optomechanics, where optical trapping fully determines the mechanical modes and their frequencies. Here, using the coherent-scattering (CS)…
We study experimentally and theoretically discrete solitons in crystalline structures consisting of several tens of laser-cooled ions confined in a radiofrequency trap. Resonantly exciting localized, spectrally gapped vibrational modes of the soliton, a nonlinear mechanism leads to a nonequilibrium steady state of the continuously cooled crystal. We find that the propagation and the escape of the soliton out of its a quasi-one-dimensional channel can be described as a thermal activation mechanism. We control the effective temperature of the soliton's collective coordinate by the amplitude of t…
Motivated by the ideas of using cold alkaline earth atoms trapped in an optical lattice for realization of optical atomic clocks, we investigate theoretically the perturbative effects of atom-atom interactions on a clock transition frequency. These interactions are mediated by the dipole fields associated with the optically excited atoms. We predict resonance-like features in the frequency shifts when constructive interference among atomic dipoles occur. We theoretically demonstrate that by fine-tuning the coherent dipole-dipole couplings in appropriately designed lattice geometries, the undes…
Controlling Atom Array in an Ultra-high-cooperativity Optical Cavity
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Quantum Science Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area（粤港澳大湾区量子科学中心）；Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences（北京量子信息科学研究院）
We demonstrate quantum control techniques for a single trapped ion in a cryogenic, surface-electrode trap. A narrow optical transition of Sr+ along with the ground and first excited motional states of the harmonic trapping potential form a two-qubit system. The optical qubit transition is susceptible to magnetic field fluctuations, which we stabilize with a simple and compact method using superconducting rings. Decoherence of the motional qubit is suppressed by the cryogenic environment. AC Stark shift correction is accomplished by controlling the laser phase in the pulse sequencer, eliminatin…
The creation of matter and structure in our universe is currently described by an intricate interplay of quantum field theory and general relativity. Signatures of this process during an early inflationary period can be observed, while direct tests remain out of reach. Here, we study an experimental analog of the process based on trapped atomic ions. We create pairs of phonons by tearing apart quantum vacuum fluctuations. Thereby, we prepare ions in an entangled state of motion. Controlling timescales and the coupling to environments should permit optimizing efficiencies while keeping the effe…
Precise knowledge of the Hamiltonian of a system is a key to many of its applications. Tasks such state transfer or quantum computation have been well studied with a linear chain, but hardly with systems, which do not possess a linear structure. While this difference does not disturb the end-to-end dynamics of a single excitation, the evolution is significantly changed in other subspaces. Here we quantify the difference between a linear chain and a pseudo-chain, which have more than one spin at some site (block). We show how to estimate a number of all spins in the system and the intra-block c…
The prospect of controlling entanglement in interacting quantum systems offers a myriad of technological and scientific promises, given the progress in experimental studies in systems such as ultracold trapped gases. This control is often challenging because of decoherence, the process by which environmental interactions create spurious entanglements that can destroy the desired entanglement. Considering the collisional decoherence that is relevant for quantum measurements utilizing scattering in one-dimensional trapped gases, here we derive a relationship between particle masses and wave pack…
Fractional quantum Hall systems are among the most exciting strongly correlated systems. Accessing them microscopically via quantum simulations with ultracold atoms would be an important achievement toward a better understanding of this strongly correlated state of matter. A promising approach is to confine a small number of bosonic atoms in a quasi-two-dimensional rotating trap, which mimics the magnetic field. For rotation frequencies close to the in-plane trapping frequency, the ground state is predicted to be a bosonic analog of the Laughlin state. Here, we study the problem of the adiabat…
We discuss the filtering of the vibrational states of a cold atom in an optical trap, by chaining this trap with two empty ones and controlling adiabatically the tunneling. Matter wave filtering is performed by selectively transferring the population of the highest populated vibrational state to the most distant trap while the population of the rest of the states remains in the initial trap. Analytical conditions for two-state filtering are derived and then applied to an arbitrary number of populated bound states. Realistic numerical simulations close to state-of-the-art experimental arrangeme…
