Reduction of anomalous heating in an in-situ-cleaned ion trap

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in-situ argon-ion beam cleaning of ion trap electrodes significantly reduces anomalous heating rates, advancing the development of scalable quantum computing with trapped ions.

Contribution

The study introduces an in-situ cleaning method that effectively reduces surface contaminants, leading to a substantial decrease in ion heating rates.

Findings

Heating rate reduced by two orders of magnitude after cleaning

Surface contaminants contribute to electric-field noise

In-situ cleaning improves ion trap performance

Abstract

Anomalous heating of trapped atomic ions is a major obstacle to their use as quantum bits in a scalable quantum computer. The physical origin of this heating is not fully understood, but experimental evidence suggests that it is caused by electric-field noise emanating from the surface of the trap electrodes. In this study, we have investigated the role that adsorbates on the electrodes play by identifying contaminant overlayers, developing an in situ argon-ion beam cleaning procedure, and measuring ion heating rates before and after cleaning the trap electrodes' surfaces. We find a reduction of two orders of magnitude in heating rate after cleaning.