Assembling a ring-shaped crystal in a microfabricated surface ion trap

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation of a ring-shaped crystal of approximately 400 calcium ions in a microfabricated surface trap, achieving uniform ion spacing through design and electric field control.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microfabricated surface trap design enabling stable, uniform ring-shaped ion crystals with a large number of ions.

Findings

Successful trapping of ~400 Ca+ ions in a ring shape

Achieved uniform ion separation over most of the ring

Electric field suppression is key to stable confinement

Abstract

We report on experiments with a microfabricated surface trap designed for trapping a chain of ions in a ring. Uniform ion separation over most of the ring is achieved with a rotationally symmetric design and by measuring and suppressing undesired electric fields. After minimizing these fields the ions are confined primarily by an rf trapping pseudo-potential and their mutual Coulomb repulsion. The ring-shaped crystal consists of approximately 400 Ca$^+$ ions with an estimated average separation of 9 $\mu m$.