Trapping, Shaping and Isolating of Ion Coulomb Crystals via State-selective Optical Potentials

Abstract

For conventional ion traps, the trapping potential is close to independent of the electronic state, providing confinement for ions dependent primarily on their charge-to-mass ratio $Q/m$. In contrast, storing ions within an optical dipole trap results in state-dependent confinement. Here we experimentally study optical dipole potentials for ${}^{138}{\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}$ ions stored within two distinctive traps operating at 532 nm and 1064 nm. We prepare the ions in either the $6{\mathrm{S}}_{1/2}$ electronic ground or the $5{\mathrm{D}}_{3/2}$/ $5{\mathrm{D}}_{5/2}$ metastable excited state and probe the relative strength and polarity of the potential. On the one hand, we apply our findings to selectively remove ions from a Coulomb crystal, despite all ions sharing the same $Q/m$. On the other hand, we deterministically purify the trapping volume from parasitic ions in higher-energy orbits, resulting in reliable isolation of Coulomb crystals down to a single ion within a radio-frequency trap.

9 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Highly-charged ions for atomic clocks, quantum information, and search for $\alpha$-variation
• Quantum zigzag transition in ion chains
• Double wells, scalar fields and quantum phase transitions in ions traps
• Observation of collisions between cold Li atoms and Yb${}^{+}$ ions
• A far-off-resonance optical trap for a Ba${}^{+}$ ion
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• Trapping Ions and Atoms Optically
• Measurement of the branching fractions and lifetime of the $5D_{5/2}$ level of Ba${}^{+}$
• Precision measurement of branching fractions of ${}^{138}$Ba${}^{+}$: Testing many body theories below one percent level
• Trapping Single Ions and Coulomb Crystals with Light Fields

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• Ultracold ion-atom experiments: cooling, chemistry, and quantum effects
• Interactions of Ions and Ultracold Neutral Atom Ensembles in Composite Optical Dipole Traps: Developments and Perspectives
• Exploring atom-ion Feshbach resonances below the s-wave limit
• Ultracold Interactions between Ions and Polar Molecules
• Dynamic polarizability of the ${}^{85}$Rb $5D_{3/2}$-state in 1064 nm light
• Near-resonant light scattering by an atom in a state-dependent trap
• Tune-out wavelength for the thulium atom near 576 nm