Optical Trapping of an Ion

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first experimental proof-of-principle for trapping an ion solely using an optical dipole trap, enabling potential hybrid trapping of ions and atoms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of trapping an ion with an optical dipole trap, replacing RF trapping during the main trapping phase.

Findings

Measured ion lifetime of milliseconds in optical trap

Demonstrated the feasibility of hybrid trapping setups

Showed potential for increased lifetime with laser detuning and cooling

Abstract

For several decades, ions have been trapped by radio frequency (RF) and neutral particles by optical fields. We implement the experimental proof-of-principle for trapping an ion in an optical dipole trap. While loading, initialization and final detection are performed in a RF trap, in between, this RF trap is completely disabled and substituted by the optical trap. The measured lifetime of milliseconds allows for hundreds of oscillations within the optical potential. It is mainly limited by heating due to photon scattering. In future experiments the lifetime may be increased by further detuning the laser and cooling the ion. We demonstrate the prerequisite to merge both trapping techniques in hybrid setups to the point of trapping ions and atoms in the same optical potential.