A trapped-ion local field probe

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method using a single trapped ion as a local field probe with nanometer spatial resolution, enabling detailed electric field characterization within a large region.

Contribution

It introduces a measurement scheme employing a shuttled single ion to achieve high-resolution local electric field measurements, including theoretical and practical implementation details.

Findings

Achieved nanometer-scale spatial resolution in electric field measurements.

Demonstrated sub-percent agreement between measured and calculated electric fields.

Validated the method by accurately investigating ion confinement potentials.

Abstract

We introduce a measurement scheme that utilizes a single ion as a local field probe. The ion is confined in a segmented Paul trap and shuttled around to reach different probing sites. By the use of a single atom probe, it becomes possible characterizing fields with spatial resolution of a few nm within an extensive region of millimeters. We demonstrate the scheme by accurately investigating the electric fields providing the confinement for the ion. For this we present all theoretical and practical methods necessary to generate these potentials. We find sub-percent agreement between measured and calculated electric field values.