Ion traps with enhanced optical and physical access

Understand

Small, controllable, highly accessible quantum systems can serve as probes at the single quantum level to study multiple physical effects, for example in quantum optics or for electric and magnetic field sensing.

• The applicability of trapped atomic ions as probes is highly dependent on the measurement situation at hand and thus calls for specialized traps.
• Previous approaches for ion traps with enhanced optical access included traps consisting of a single ring electrode or two opposing endcap electrodes.
• Other possibilities are planar trap geometries, which have been investigated for Penning traps and rf-trap arrays.