vdW-corrected density functional study of electric field noise heating in ion traps caused by electrode surface adsorbates

Understand

In order to realize the full potential of ion trap quantum computers, an improved understanding is required of the motional heating that trapped ions experience.

• Experimental studies of the temperature-, frequency-, and ion--electrode distance-dependence of the electric field noise responsible for motional heating, as well as the noise before and after ion bombardment cleaning of trap electrodes, suggest that fluctuations of adsorbate dipoles are a likely source of so-called `anomalous heating,' or motional heating of the trapped ions at a rate much higher than the Johnson noise limit.
• Previous computational studies have investigated how the fluctuation of model adsorbate dipoles affects anomalous heating.
• However, the way in which specific adsorbates affect the electric field noise has not yet been examined, and an electric dipole model employed in previous studies is only accurate for a small subset of possible adsorbates.