Resonance enhanced isotope-selective photoionization of YbI for ion trap loading

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an efficient isotope-selective two-photon photoionization method for YbI, enabling nearly deterministic loading of YbII ions into ion traps, which benefits quantum experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel isotope-selective photoionization technique for YbI that improves ion trap loading efficiency over traditional methods.

Findings

Two-colour photoionization achieves high efficiency.

Nearly deterministic loading of YbII ions demonstrated.

Compared favorably to electron impact ionization.

Abstract

Neutral Ytterbium (YbI) and singly ionized Ytterbium (YbII) is widely used in experiments in quantum optics, metrology and quantum information science. We report on the investigation of isotope selective two-photoionisation of YbI that allows for efficient loading of ion traps with YbII. Results are presented on two-colour (399 nm and 369 nm) and single-colour (399 nm) photoionisation and their efficiency is compared to electron impact ionisation. Nearly deterministic loading of a desired number of YbII ions into a linear Paul trap is demonstrated.