All-Optical Broadband Excitation of the Motional State of Trapped Ions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel all-optical broadband method for exciting, amplifying, and measuring the secular motion of trapped ions, enabling precise control even with evolving secular frequencies.

Contribution

The work presents a new optical excitation scheme that coherently amplifies ion motion and is robust against secular frequency variations, improving control and measurement of ion dynamics.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated optical excitation and amplification of ion motion.

Achieved precise control of oscillation amplitude via laser line-of-sight.

Validated experimental results with molecular dynamics simulations.

Abstract

We have developed a novel all-optical broadband scheme for exciting, amplifying and measuring the secular motion of ions in a radio frequency trap. Oscillation induced by optical excitation has been coherently amplified to precisely control and measure the ion's secular motion. Requiring only laser line-of-sight, we have shown that the ion's oscillation amplitude can be precisely controlled. Our excitation scheme can generate coherent motion which is robust against variations in the secular frequency. Therefore, our scheme is ideal to excite the desired level of oscillatory motion under conditions where the secular frequency is evolving in time. Measuring the oscillation amplitude through Doppler velocimetry, we have characterized the experimental parameters and compared them with a molecular dynamics simulation which provides a complete description of the system.