Integrated-Photonics-Based Systems for Polarization-Gradient Cooling of Trapped Ions

Understand

Trapped ions are a promising modality for quantum systems, with demonstrated utility as the basis for quantum processors and optical clocks.

• However, traditional trapped-ion systems are implemented using complex free-space optical configurations, whose large size and susceptibility to vibrations and drift inhibit scaling to large numbers of qubits.
• In recent years, integrated-photonics-based systems have been demonstrated as an avenue to address the challenge of scaling trapped-ion systems while maintaining high fidelities.
• While these previous demonstrations have implemented both Doppler and resolved-sideband cooling of trapped ions, these cooling techniques are fundamentally limited in efficiency.