Trapping and Sympathetic Cooling of Boron Ions

TL;DR

This paper reports on trapping and sympathetically cooling boron ions within a calcium ion Coulomb crystal, confirming their presence through resonant excitation and spectral analysis, advancing ion trapping techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a method for trapping and cooling boron ions using a calcium Coulomb crystal, including non-destructive isotope detection and spectral characterization.

Findings

Successful trapping of B+ ions in a Coulomb crystal

Non-destructive isotope identification via secular excitation

Detection of Bn+ ion features in spectra

Abstract

We demonstrate the trapping and sympathetic cooling of B$^{+}$ ions in a Coulomb crystal of laser-cooled Ca$^{+}$, We non-destructively confirm the presence of the both B$^+$ isotopes by resonant excitation of the secular motion. The B$^{+}$ ions are loaded by ablation of boron and the secular excitation spectrum also reveals features consistent with ions of the form B$_{n}^{+}$.