Dynamics of ion cloud in a linear Paul trap

TL;DR

This paper presents a linear ion trap setup used to study the dynamics of ion clouds, including stability, secular frequency, and motional spectra, to improve high-precision measurements and understand space charge effects.

Contribution

It introduces a new linear ion trap system and provides detailed analysis of ion cloud dynamics, stability regions, and motional characteristics for high-precision applications.

Findings

Identified stability regions and nonlinear resonances in the trap.

Measured secular frequency and motional spectra of trapped ions.

Analyzed space charge effects and axial coupling phenomena.

Abstract

A linear ion trap setup has been developed for studying the dynamics of trapped ion cloud and thereby realizing possible systematics of a high precision measurement on a single ion within it. The dynamics of molecular nitrogen ion cloud has been investigated to extract the characteristics of the trap setup. The stability of trap operation has been studied with observation of narrow nonlinear resonances pointing out the region of instabilities within the broad stability region. The secular frequency has been measured and the motional spectra of trapped ion oscillation have been obtained by using electric dipole excitation. It is applied to study the space charge effect and the axial coupling in the radial plane.