Photo-induced charge carrier dynamics in a semiconductor-based ion trap investigated via motion-sensitive qubit transitions

Understand

Ion trap systems built upon microfabricated chips have emerged as a promising platform for quantum computing to achieve reproducible and scalable structures.

• However, photo-induced charging of materials in such chips can generate undesired stray electric fields that disrupt the quantum state of the ion, limiting high-fidelity quantum control essential for practical quantum computing.
• While crude understanding of the phenomena has been gained heuristically over the past years, explanations for the microscopic mechanism of photo-generated charge carrier dynamics remains largely elusive.
• Here, we present a photo-induced charging model for semiconductors, whose verification is enabled by a systematic interaction between trapped ions and photo-induced stray fields from exposed silicon surfaces in our chip.