Coherent Diabatic Ion Transport and Separation in a Multizone Trap Array

Published

August 24, 2012

Author(s)

Ryan S. Bowler, John P. Gaebler, Yiheng Lin, Ting Rei Tan, David Hanneke, John D. Jost, J. Home, Dietrich G. Leibfried, David J. Wineland

Abstract

We investigate ion motion dynamics during the transport between and separation into spatially distinct trap locations in a multi-zone trap array. We laser-cool a single $\ensuremath{^{9}{\rm {Be}^{+}}}$ ion held in a linear Paul trap to near its ground state of motion in a 2~MHz harmonic well and transport it across $370\,\mu m$ in 16 periods of oscillation. During transport the ion is excited to a displaced coherent state with $\bar{n}\thickapprox1.6$~quanta but returns close to its motional ground state with $\bar{n}\thickapprox0.2$ quanta. We achieve similar results for two ions. We also separate multiple ions from one potential well to two distinct potential wells. With two ions this is accomplished in $55\,\mu s$, with final excitations of $\bar{n}\thickapprox2$ quanta for each ion. Fast coherent transport and separation can reduce the time overhead in certain architectures for quantum information processing with trapped ions.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

atom dynamics, atom trapping, ion traps, laser cooling, quantum state engineering, quantum entanglement, quantum information

Citation

Bowler, R. , Gaebler, J. , Lin, Y. , , T. , Hanneke, D. , Jost, J. , Home, J. , Leibfried, D. and Wineland, D. (2012), Coherent Diabatic Ion Transport and Separation in a Multizone Trap Array, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=911519 (Accessed October 8, 2025)