Optimal Surface-Electrode Trap Lattices for Quantum Simulation with Trapped Ions

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to design optimized surface-electrode trap lattices for quantum simulation with trapped ions, enabling precise control over ion positions and potentials using a linear programming approach.

Contribution

It introduces a general optimization technique for creating electrode shapes that produce desired ion trapping configurations with minimal fragmentation.

Findings

Global optimal electrode shapes are achieved using linear programming.

The method produces smooth, low-fragmentation electrode designs.

Single RF voltage source suffices for operation.

Abstract

Trapped ions offer long internal state (spin) coherence times and strong inter-particle interactions mediated by the Coulomb force. This makes them interesting candidates for quantum simulation of coupled lattices. To this end it is desirable to be able to trap ions in arbitrary conformations with precisely controlled local potentials. We provide a general method for optimizing periodic planar radio-frequency electrodes for generating ion trapping potentials with specified trap locations and curvatures above the electrode plane. A linear-programming algorithm guarantees globally optimal electrode shapes that require only a single radio-frequency voltage source for operation. The optimization method produces final electrode shapes that are smooth and exhibit low fragmentation. Such characteristics are desirable for practical fabrication of surface-electrode trap lattices.