A Deterministic Single Ion Fountain

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a high-success deterministic transfer of single ions over 110mm, enabling scalable ion trap quantum computing and quantum sensing with a 95.1% success rate.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for deterministic ion transfer between trap nodes with near-unity success probability, improving interconnectivity for quantum technologies.

Findings

Success probability of 95.1% for ion transfer

Ion transport over 110mm with 7 μs flight time

Potential applications in scalable quantum computing and sensing

Abstract

We present an alternative approach for interconnecting trapped ion processor nodes by a deterministic single ion transfer out of the trap, into a free space trajectory, followed by recapture in the trapping potential. Our experimental realization yields a success probability of 95.1%, namely 715 out of 752 extracted ions are retrapped, cooled and observed after a transport distance of 110mm and a time of flight of 7 $\mu$s. Based on the near-unity operation success, we discuss its application for scalable ion trap quantum computing and advanced quantum sensing.